Considering that the soy we eat in America is now largely GM soy, are these results based on soy in general, or effects now being found in people consuming GM soy? GM soy is in many baby formulas as well as a majority of processed foods in some form, particulary soy lechitin. Of course, we will never know the truth as the standard of substantial equivalence and GRAS were established by the FDA to give Monsanto a free ride regarding labelling and personal responsibility.Considering that the soy we eat in America is now largely GM soy, are these results... more
Soy monoculture, which has been [strong]ly criticized due to its negative impacts on rural communities, biodiversity, and human health, will obtain new legitimacy through the Kyoto Protocol, warns the Rural Reflection Group (GRR, Grupo de Reflexión Rural) of Argentina.
The Protocol, an international agreement to combat climate change that went into effect in 2005, includes a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) through which industrialized countries may acquire permits (carbon credits) that allow them to emit greenhouse gases in exchange for financing endeavors in the global South that supposedly capture or reduce emissions. These endeavors may include agro-industrial monocultures, including soy plantations in South America, according to the GRR in a report published in August.
The GRR reports that at least since 2005 the Argentine government has begun meeting with major soy producers to promote soy monoculture as a qualified activity in the carbon credit trade. As a result the soy industry in the country will be able to profit greatly from the growing "carbon market" and obtain legitimacy as an ally in the fight against global climate change. It is expected that the Argentine delegation to the next climate change summit, to be held this December in Denmark, will lobby hard in favor of the inclusion of monocultures, especially soy, in the CDM.
"Through carbon credits and the recently approved clean development mechanisms, direct seeding chemical agriculture could begin a 'genetically modified green revolution' in Africa and other parts of the world where agribusiness has yet to become hegemonic," the GRR states. "As a result, and against all logic within the climate change discourse, the United Nations is facilitating an unprecedented advancement in the global food and agriculture market while legitimizing overwhelming concentrations of food-based agricultural chains that allow for huge corporate conglomerates."
A catastrophic joke!
It will destroy our Nature before our eyes if it becomes the next world's form of energy taking oil's place.
Excerpts:
"As the world looks around anxiously for an alternative to oil, energy sources such as biofuels, solar, and nuclear seem like they could be the magic ticket. They're not."
"Renewable Fuels Are the Cure for Our Addiction to Oil."
Unfortunately not. 'Renewable fuels' sound great in theory, and agricultural lobbyists have persuaded European countries and the United States to enact remarkably ambitious biofuels mandates to promote farm-grown alternatives to gasoline. But so far in the real world, the cures -- mostly ethanol derived from corn in the United States or biodiesel derived from palm oil, soybeans, and rapeseed in Europe -- have been significantly worse than the disease."
"Researchers used to agree that farm-grown fuels would cut emissions because they all made a shockingly basic error. They gave fuel crops credit for soaking up carbon while growing, but it never occurred to them that fuel crops might displace vegetation that soaked up even more carbon. It was as if they assumed that biofuels would only be grown in parking lots. Needless to say, that hasn't been the case; Indonesia, for example, destroyed so many of its lush forests and peat lands to grow palm oil for the European biodiesel market that it ranks third rather than 21st among the world's top carbon emitters.
In 2007, researchers finally began accounting for deforestation and other land-use changes created by biofuels. One study found that it would take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat for palm oil. Indirect damage can be equally devastating because on a hungry planet, food crops that get diverted to fuel usually end up getting replaced somewhere. For example, ethanol profits are prompting U.S. soybean farmers to switch to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures to pick up the slack and Brazilian ranchers are invading the Amazon rain forest, which is why another study pegged corn ethanol's payback period at 167 years. It's simple economics: The mandates increase demand for grain, which boosts prices, which makes it lucrative to ravage the wilderness."
I THINK:
Corn?
What?
Does that word sound familiar to me?
The Evil corn, the one that comes from MONSANTO, genetically engineered.
Did occur to anyone to link biofuel and Monsanto?
Monsanto already leads the seed market with its deadly genetic engineered food, it won't take long until he will become the major if not the only energy source provider in the world supposing corn ethanol takes oil's place.
Let's read more of the article now, an other shocking passage:
"Even if the United States switched its entire grain crop to ethanol, it would only replace one fifth of U.S. gasoline consumption.
This is not just a climate disaster. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a hungry person for a year;"
At the article nuclear energy cannot fix climate crisis, reasons are timing and cost.
Last passage is:
"After all, the developing world is entitled to develop. Its people are understandably eager to eat more meat, drive more cars, and live in nicer houses. It doesn't seem fair for the developed world to say: Do as we say, not as we did. But if the developing world follows the developed world's wasteful path to prosperity, the Earth we all share won't be able to accommodate us. So we're going to have to change our ways. Then we can at least say: Do as we're doing, not as we did."
I THINK:
We need to focus mainly on solar power as it is the only futuristic, potential form of energy, that could save the world one day.
We need to readdress our way of thinking towards solar power.
I will try to explain a new direction, working to post it soon.
This is the second of my monthly Monsanto Roundup reports where the news in the world of GMOs and other related issues are disseminated in order that people might have knowledge of what is going on with their food and its effect on health, environment, biodiversity, and sustainabilty.
In this issue we go over Monsanto being a water bully, "Smartstax" GM corn not having the proper environmental assessment, Monsanto being named in 50 cancer lawsuits, African chickens refusing to eat GM maize, and the Cancer Prevention Coalition calling on the FDA to ban Aspartame.
Also, we look into the World Seed Conference now taking place in Rome and the important issue of farmers being denied saving seed which is threatening global biodiversity. We also look into Monsanto in Hawaii, action on GE trees, and the effect of soy monocultures in places like Paraguay.
There is much going on in the race to own food and water as economy, climate change, and resource depletion all bring us to a crossroads where we either stand up for global food sovereignty or we lose it.
We must be prepared. Forewarned is forearmed.
So thanks for watching and supporting this endeavor.
The fight over land by campesinos because of increased land acquisition to grow GM soya has become violent. Land used to grow feed for animals in Europe and Asia to satisfy their appetite for meat has exacerbated a battle for food sovereignty and the livelihoods of peasant farmers. Industrial agriculture in this area is also poisoning the land and the people, and the deforestation exacerbating climate change. This is a recipe for environmental, economic, and social disaster as companies such as Monsanto expand their reach to satisfy their insatiable greed at the expense of biodiversity.
This must be stopped now.The fight over land by campesinos because of increased land acquisition to grow GM... more
EXTRACT: As with colonial countries ravaged by imperial powers, once profits from soy dries up due to a collapse on the global market, Argentina will be left with only the devastating impact of monoculture – displaced rural populations, nutrient depleted soil, loss of biodiversity, and poisoned communities.
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The Soy Republic of Argentina
Marie Trigona
Toward Freedom, 3 September 2009 http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1664/1/
The increasing export of genetically modified crops is part of a regional trend with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay now adopting a soy-based economic model. Argentina has made a radical shift toward soy, which has displaced cultivation of many grains and vegetables and even its beef production, the nation’s diet staple and renowned around the world. Once a highly industrialized nation and agriculturally diverse, Argentina now uses more than half of its total arable land for monoculture soy. The majority of soy production is controlled by "growing pools" or financial speculators that buy or lease land from small farmers who can’t afford soy’s high production costs. In all, some 47 million tons of soy was produced in 2008.
Argentina's farmers have recently resumed a nation-wide strike in protest over the government’s agricultural policies. This protest is the latest episode in a long standing dispute between the agricultural sector and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner over tax exports on soy. The fertile South American nation is now the world's third largest producer of soy, trailing behind the United States and Brazil. The boom in soy production in Argentina has reaped record profits for soy farmers and multi-nationals marketing bio-technology for the mono-culture crop in recent years, but it has taken its toll on food production, traditional farmers and the environment.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have increasingly played a key role in the economy and in the planet’s food supply. Nearly 95% of soy grown in Argentina is genetically modified, adopting the Roundup Ready technology marketed by Monsanto. The majority of the soy grown is for export to China and the EU which use soybean grain for feed and poultry lots.
Unlike the Banana Republics still intact in many parts of Central America, which exude violence to keep governments, workers and the population at large in line with big business interest, the soy model or "soy republic" adopted in many countries in South America operates by sheer market force and consolidation. Agribusiness giants Monsanto, Dow and Cargill have developed mechanisms to make dictatorships an unnecessary luxury. What Argentina and other South American nations do have in common with Banana Republics is the colonial development model, or better put anti-development model, where the nation reverts to relying on exporting a single cash crop to First World nations. However, dictatorships that used terror, torture and censorship in the 1970’s and early 1980’s are responsible for laying the ground work for privatization, liberalization of trade barriers, deregulation of environmental standards and land concentration which ripened the region for the GMO invasion.
The soy republic model has led to economic dependency on transnational investments, food sovereignty risks, displacement of rural populations, degradation of soil and water systems, severe health threats from the use of pesticides and herbicides and a long list of social problems such as increased inequality and unemployment.EXTRACT: As with colonial countries ravaged by imperial powers, once profits from soy... more
GMOs will also hurt our economy as well as our environment. I am wondering if this is done purposefully to push it on people in Europe without their knowledge.
Excerpt:
* EU buyers voluntarily stop imports of U.S. soy
* Shipments found with GMO varieties MON-88017, MIR-604
* Contaminated shipments were rejected, recalled
* Incidents reported in Spain, Germany
* Trade hopes Brussels will change rules (Recasts, updates with comments from EU spokesman in Washington; adds second byline, dateline, previously MADRID)
MADRID/WASHINGTON, Aug 6 - European Union buyers have voluntarily moved to stop imports of U.S. soy after shipments were found containing traces of genetically modified corn, a spokesman for the EU in Washington said on Thursday.
European trade sources said U.S. soybean meal shipments to Spain and Germany were found with traces of GMO corn, which is prohibited in the European Union.
"The industry has itself decided to stop all imports of U.S. soy, as of now," Mattias Sundholm told Reuters.
"The shipments have been rejected at the EU borders, and have been consigned and recalled when already on the market within the EU, unless they have already been consumed," Sundholm said.
Sundholm could not confirm the quantity or location of the shipments, but said they were found to contain the corn varieties MON-88017 and MIR-604.
Officials from the U.S. Agriculture Department and trade associations have not replied to requests for information.
The incident has raised concerns about bottlenecks in supply of a key feed ingredient for European livestock, which is already pricey.
"The main problem is that EU regulations don't allow marginal amounts, traces of GMOs not authorised by the EU," a spokesman for the Spanish Assocation of Cereal and Products Importers said.
"That puts us all in an uncertain, risky trade situation, and that is most serious for the entire European Community -- trade, livestock production and the economy."
Sources said 50,000 tonnes of contaminated U.S. soybean meal had been unloaded and detained at Tarragona, Spain's largest port. Port officials were not available to comment.
"It still needs to be dispatched and we await a meeting by the European Commission, probably in September, because nothing will happen in August," a port source said.
"The meeting will have to be urgent, because they have had similar problems in Germany."
The EU was the fourth-largest market last year for U.S. soymeal exports, totaling 475,900 tonnes. Shipments so far this marketing year, which began last October, are 374,300 tonnes.
A Spanish agriculture ministry official confirmed authorities had blocked a shipment of soybean meal, but could provide no further details.
One source said another cargo of soybean meal in the Spanish port of La Coruna awaited tests for genetically modified organisms, but port officials were unable to comment.
Spain's feed industry consumes some 5 million tonnes of protein-rich soybean meal a year, all of it imported, and mostly from the United States, Brazil or Argentina.
Soybean meal was quoted at 318-334 euros ($457.3-480.3) a tonne, ex-store, in Tarragona GRAES01>.
A trade source estimated Spanish ports had enough soymeal in stock to supply the animal feed industry for about a month, and said prices could be affected.
A port source said that Spain could not rely on supplies of soy from Argentina and Brazil alone.GMOs will also hurt our economy as well as our environment. I am wondering if this is... more
Since Argentina's soybean boom in the late 90s, clinical studies have been conducted in communities reporting suspiciously high rates of cancer, birth defects, and neonatal mortality. However, industry leaders also refute these clinical studies, saying they are anecdotal and have little scientific basis. Among a corporate controlled scientific community it is notoriously difficult for clinical studies to "prove" the link between environmental contamination and health results, since life is not a "controlled environment."
In a small town bordering soy farms in the province of Cordoba, the Mothers of Ituzaingo group was formed in response to sudden increases in the local cancer rate. Ituzaingo has 5,000 residents—in 2001 they reported more than 200 cases of cancer and by 2009 that number has jumped to 300. This is 41 times the national average. (I conducted this calculation: the national average or percentage is 0.145 of the population diagnosed with cancer—in this town 6% of the population has cancer.) They have fought for regulations against fumigating soy crops in residential areas and a ban of agrochemicals.
Sofia Gatica is an activist with the Mothers of Ituzaingo. Sofia joined the grassroots group after suffering the death of her newborn baby. Her daughter was still born with a malformed kidney. Her 14-year-old daughter is currently undergoing treatment for toxicity in the blood. The toxin was identified as endosulfan, an insecticide used on soy fields.
Gatica describes the many birth defects that have occurred locally. "We have had children born with only two thumbs and no fingers, malformed kidneys, children with six fingers. We have had babies born without an anus, or with malformations in the intestines."
After years of documenting the tragedies, the Mothers of Itzuaingo decided to take their case to the courts. In 2006, they won their lawsuit in the provincial Supreme Court. Based on their findings the court ruled to prohibit the use of agrochemicals within 1,000 meters of residential areas. The decision applies to the province of Cordoba while in the rest of the country farmers can continue to fumigate with no regulations.
The case of Ituzaingo is not an isolated case. For nearly a decade, communities have reported health problems from aerial and terrestrial fumigation with the arsenal of pesticides and herbicides used in industrial soy farming. And for nearly a decade they have been ignored. "Communities are literally fumigated with planes or with the terrestrial 'mosquito repellant' fumigations (similar to the DEET trucks used to fumigate U.S. neighborhoods in the 50s). Cases of health problems, miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer rates have multiplied at an alarming rate in communities surrounding the soy fields," says Carlos A. Vicente, head of information for Latin America at GRAIN.
The Campesino Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE), a grassroots movement made up of traditional farmers and indigenous groups, has taken more than 100 accusations of agrochemical poisoning to court in Santiago del Estero. The only other case of a judge ruling against the use of herbicides occurred in the northern province of Formosa. The judge, Silvia Amanda Sevilla, was subsequently fired. No other judge in the country has ruled in favor of prohibiting fumigation using glyphosate or other herbicides and pesticides. The courts have either thrown out or ruled against every single claim brought by the plaintiffs. Darío Aranda, a journalist with the national daily, Página/12, has reported on numerous communities in soy-producing regions throughout the country that have faced severe health problems, including residents in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Chaco, Santa Fe, and Formosa.
Worse yet, research shows that the mostly rural communities that suffer the negative health effects of fumigations have not benefited from the soy explosion.
Much more at the link.Since Argentina's soybean boom in the late 90s, clinical studies have been conducted... more
This seems to be the pattern: more and more land being bought up and used after deforesting it to grow soy and corn for biofuel and animal feed. This then in turn brings up the price of food and giving companies like Monsanto a chance to lie to these farmers that they then need their GM crap in order to feed themselves, when they are the ones using the land to grow seed that is not for food!
It is happening in Paraguay, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, and the list goes on and on. It is a false food shortage precipitated by speculation and big ag greed. And now, climate change in many areas is making it harder for what crops these farmers do have to grow. They take away these peoples' traditions, their ability to grow their own food, and in turn their very freedom. This is not sustainable nor is it moral. I say the major struggles we will see in the coming years will be farmers standing up for food freedom and environmental democracy to protect their water and natural seeds that THEY should be allowed to save. It is already happening and will only get more intense as long as Industrial agriculture maintains their chokehold over our food system globally.
It is time to stand up to them in every country, ESPECIALLY America. Why farmers here continue to be silent on the whole and continue to plant Monsanto's GM crap can only be attributed to them either being too scared to not do it, uneducated about what they are doing, or simply greedy themselves. They need to see the repercussions to biodiversity their actions are causing. I have a feeling that day is coming very soon.This seems to be the pattern: more and more land being bought up and used after... more
Just before an international conference will decide on setting 'responsible soy standards, a new report is published by Corporate Europe Observatory exposing the reality of 'responsible' soy production in Paraguay. The Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), an NGO-industry forum, will vote on a set of criteria for 'responsible' soy production on May 28 in the city Campinas, Brazil.
There is widespread international rejection of the RTRS process for certifying GM RoundupReady soy as 'responsible' while also legitimising soy expansion. The RTRS is dominated by industry members, including Monsanto, Cargill and Syngenta, while WWF and Solidaridad are the driving NGO members.
The report is illustrative of some of the widespread criticism on the RTRS, including the legitimisation of soy expansion. San Pedro is the new frontier of soy expansion in Paraguay, and this is where Grupo DAP - member of the RTRS - has established new soy farms on some 30.000 hectares. There is strong local resistance to indiscriminate spraying of agrochemicals, namely Roundup, on soy fields in San Pedro.
The report shows how the introduction of chemical weed control on smallholders' fields, promoted by Grupo DAP and other soy farmers, creates conflicts within the community and an increased pesticide use.
National regulations that get watered down, such as the new pesticide law in Paraguay pushed for by the soy industry lobby, cause equivalent weakening of RTRS standards since these are based to a large extent on compliance with national laws.
The report concludes that RTRS certification provides the participating industry with a greenwash, rather than real steps to address the problems caused by the international soy industry.
They are poisoning the planet, and leading many small farmers to financial ruin in a monoculture world. How Monsanto or any agbusiness company can even think that is "sustainable" speaks to their total lack of a conscience or moral code.
WE ARE BEING POISONED DAILY, and it is happening with the consent of the very politicians so many continue to support and believe. It is happening with the help of a complicit and desensitized media that cares nothing for real truth and education on the whole, but simply "entertaining the masses" into apathy. It is happening with corporate malfeasance that is placing the almighty dollar above all else even at the expense of human life and the sustainability of the only planet that can sustain us.
And the only way it will stop is if we speak out. Now.
Now Argentina has to decide what is more important: Money or people. What is the number of people who will develop cancer or have birth defects in their children that will be an "acceptable" number to them to offset the profits made? How much more blood money will Monsanto be able to suck out of Argentina, India, and other countries they prey upon with their lies?Now Argentina has to decide what is more important: Money or people. What is the... more
I just posted another study a couple of days ago regarding herbicides and their possible linkage to brain cancer in children. Now tell me, how is it that Monsanto PR reps have the absolute NERVE to come on these Internet sites and tell us that this poison is safe? Any company that claims they didn't want to lose one dollar of profit after toxifying an entire town with their PCBS, doesn't seem likely to give a damn about the poisons they sell now. Remember, the suffix "cide" refers to killing something.That obviously is not going to happen with a benign substance.
This also goes back to their seed patents, because farmers are required to purchase Round Up with the seeds because the seeds are supposedly "Round Up Ready." I have never seen such diabolical deceptive measures employed by a company to make proft over the safety and health of the environment and the people. But we will never see this information dessiminated by this media or the polticians who continue to support them.
I even saw a new ad from Monsanto the other night about Round Up CONCENTRATE, and they encourage people to spray it around their homes to kill weeds, but no warnings given. How absolutely evil. I say, if what they say about it being safer to drink a glass of glyphosate than milk is indeed true, let's see the CEO of Monsanto down a nice big tall one on one of those ads.I just posted another study a couple of days ago regarding herbicides and their... more
Slowly but surely the truth will win out about the deception of GMOs. Slowly but surely more and more people around the world are catching on to Monsanto's lies about yields. Slowly but surely the toxic effects of glyphosate which has now poisoned much of our planet will be seen. But will it be too late? Is there any other Monsanto product besides the toxic Aspartame that is still on the market besides their test tube organisms and accompanying poisonous herbicides? Doesn't that tell you something? They even had to sell off rbgh to Eli Lilly because of the truth of that being told as well.
Kudos to Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Brazil (which I hope continues this trend) and even Sri Lanka that has banned GMOS. This is the greatest environmental challenge we will face in concert with climate change and water scarcity. If you then don't see how these multinationals are lining up to get your food and water because they see what is coming and are doing all in their power to precipitate it, you are simply not paying enough attention.
MONSANTO KILLS BIODIVERSITY. And biodiversity is the crux of human life and environmental and economic sustainability. Once they take that away and own all of the seed and water, you may as well kiss your future bye bye. That is the truth of it. Which is why I and so many others are fighting so hard by using these mediums to get information out to people to empower them to say NO to GMOS.
Reality will then be our ally.Slowly but surely the truth will win out about the deception of GMOs. Slowly but... more
Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs have warned that they would contaminate other crops. This has happened, just as predicted. In this article we look at how communities in different parts of the world that have experienced contamination are developing strategies to fight against it.
When GM crops are planted they contaminate other crops with transgenic material. In places where GM crops are grown on a large scale, it has already become almost impossible to find crops of the same species that are free of GM material. And the contamination spreads even to areas where GM crops are not officially permitted. [1] The GM Contamination Register, managed by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International, has documented more than 216 cases of GM contamination in 57 countries over the past 10 years, including 39 cases in 2007. [2]
Monsanto and the other biotech corporations have always known that their GM crops would contaminate other crops. Indeed, it was part of their strategy to force the world into accepting GMOs. But around the world people are refusing to lie down and accept genetic modification as a fact of life; instead they are struggling against it, even in places subject to contamination. In fact, some communities experiencing contamination are developing sophisticated forms of resistance to GM crops. These usually begin with short-term strategies to decontaminate their local seeds, but often seek over the long term to strengthen their traditional food and agricultural systems.
We look at the experiences of communities in different parts of the world in dealing with GM contamination to see what insights they can offer others faced with similar situations. Each situation is unique, and gives rise to different processes. Common to all of them is the primary importance of collective action – of communities working at the grassroots to identify their own solutions and not depending on courts or governments, which, without strong social pressure, tend to side with industry.Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs... more
Thanks to the GMWatch translators for this http://web.archive.org/web/20071225180614rn_1/www.gmwatch...
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In 2008, media reports showcased the various impacts of environmental contamination on bees and beekeepers: in the Germany's Baden-Württemberg state, 500 million bees died in Spring due to the insecticidal seed treatment agent clothianidin. Another example is the case of a Swabian beekeeper, who destroyed his whole honey harvest because it contained pollen of the GM corn MON810, after the administrative court declared the honey as 'non marketable'. The judgement is not yet absolute.
In its January edition, the German eco- magazine Öko-Test published an article on the analysis of 24 honeys, including 6 canola honeys, for GM and pesticide contamination, as well as other quality criteria.
Only 3 products were rated "very good" while six either got an "inadequate" rating or "failed". A whopping eleven samples (almost half of the samples) - mainly from South America - were contaminated with GM pollen, predominantly of GM Roundup Ready soy. Although the oil plant supplies little nectar and therefore is not a honey plant, the bees apparently still take the pollen. Latin American countries - where aplenty GM soy is grown - are at the same time suppliers of a bigger part of the world honey production.
At least, honey from German beekeepers as well as those from Southeastern Europe and fair trade honey were unpolluted. For the latter, the reason might be that small-scale beekeepers often produce their honey in less contaminated regions than big apiaries. Among the canola honeys, the lab found GM in the Canadian Canola-Clover Honey - unsurprisingly, as Canada mostly grows GM canola.
Pesticides appeared virtually exclusively in German products, mostly the insecticide thiacloprid - found in honeys with a high proportion of canola. Unfortunately, even the supposedly organic canola honey by Allos contained increased residues.
Reacting to the test results, the company Breitsamer wrote that beekeepers are victims of genetic engineering; they themselves are not using GM, do not grow GM crops, and do not have any interest in herbicide resistant crops. Furthermore, the bees could not be controlled as they search for nectar within an area of 50 square kilometre. By way of contrast, the discounter Lidl commented that the entry of GM soy pollen is completely accidental, and could vary widely within one charge; moreover, the quantities are very small.
The article concludes that while nobody wants GM in their honey, the findings show that coexistence of conventional and GM agriculture is impossible. Therefore, the ratings reflect a political reality rather than being due to lack of due diligence by the honey producers. Furthermore, the legal position does not support the honey as the GM pollen are not GMOs as such - the legislation explicitly deals with GMOs. Thus, the GM content in honey neither has to be approved nor labelled. On the other hand, judgements such as the one from the administrative court regarding the GM maize MON810 show that there are other legal conceptions. The background: at present MON810 is not clearly approved for human consumption.
Sometimes the level of 0.9 percent is used - as honey only contains only around 0.1 to 0.5 percent pollen, labelling then would not be compulsory. In any case, transparency for the consumer falls by the wayside.NOTE: A German magazine has had honey tested and found extensive GM contamination.... more
Soy, she tells me, is "a disease, stuck in the marrow of my bones. It sustains me enough to keep me breathing at the end of each day, but it is rotting me alive. It is slowly numbing my body from the inside out. This crop has robbed me of my child. It has robbed me of my youth, my hope, my want to look ahead to a future. I am not the only one. There are many of us. In America you have cocaine to kill slowly; in Argentina we have soybeans."
Her name is Sonita Ponce. She is thirty-three, but she looks much older. She lives with her husband in the same stone, tin and mud hut that her great grandparents built and passed down through the generations. Their farm is located thirty miles south of Bolivia, in the northern Argentine province of Jujuy. Sonita's family members have always been farmers, and until quite recently their farm produced a wide variety of crops including maize, quinoa, lettuces, and other legumes. This changed in the early years of 2000 when the craze of soy hit America and China. Then genetically modified soy seeds were introduced to Argentina. Suddenly the production demand for soybeans increased so dramatically that the local farmers of these countries could no longer meet the consumer demands, and land was bought up by multinational soy corporations. Many farmers have lost their jobs, homes, land, and health.
In the past, farming in Northern Argentina was community based and structured. The provinces in this part of the country are very hot and dry, and this ecosystem can naturally support only small networks of farms. Thus this area consisted of small communities built around many little farms. The average farm contained 100-250 hectares with 10-15 male field hands who maintained and harvested the crops by hand or simple machinery. Many of the workers lived in small shacks on or close to the property of the farm, turning it into a gathering and meeting place for them and their families. Without modern technology, these small farms had jobs or chores for every age group. Small children could harvest vegetables or tend animals. Wives cooked or accompanied the men in the fields. Older generations assisted the children with harvesting and other simple tasks.
A farmerless crop
As soy fields spread, the US agrochemical giant Monsanto Corporation, developed and introduced the genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" (RR) soybean into the agriculture sector of South America. All parties concerned predicted that the introduction of the genetically modified (GM) soybean would advance farmers economically and technologically. The RR seed is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, meaning that when the farmers spray glyphosate on their fields, the herbicide kills all the weeds without hurting the soy seed. Without a weed problem, the farmers dramatically decrease or stop tilling their fields, saving gas and machinery cost.
From an economic standpoint, Monsanto thought that cutting production costs would increase profit. They failed, however to understand that by bringing in these GM crops, they were uprooting the social structure and culture that the people of Northern Argentina survived on. "Genetically modified soy is a farm product that needs no farmers," Sonita explains, "which was what made it so appealing to all of us. We just weren't ready for the long terms effects."
With less machinery being operated, and the "built-in" weed management system, few hands are needed to tend to the crops. The labor requirement now for a soy farm is only one job per 100-55 hectares, which creates a large increase in unemployment throughout Northern Argentina. Without the need for extra field hands, suddenly thousands of workers and their families found themselves jobless, and, not soon after, homeless. These workers were the first people to feel the direct impact of the new GM soy crop.Soy, she tells me, is "a disease, stuck in the marrow of my bones. It sustains me... more
We cannot and must not relent on the USDA to do all in it's power to reverse the policy on GM foods in this country. We can no longer afford to continue to consume these foods without proper testing and with FDA scientists no longer being gagged about the results they came up with initially. Americans are being used as guinea pigs and pawns for profit, and it is expanding worldwide. Test after test confirms that these foods are not entirely safe for consumption (not to mention the environmental devastation and transgenic contamination they are spreading) and it is being hidden from the general population at large.This is more than likely why Monsanto and the FDA have been fighting to keep the source of our food off of our labels. Monsanto has also been sued regarding false advertising regarding Round Up and had to change how they were advertising it. They know it is poison. Just like Agent Orange, and the human and environmental effects of that are still being felt forty years later.
I am writing another letter to "president- elect" Obama and will be making a petition within the week. I don't know if it is going to be a written petition or one I will post here as a video that people can respond to. I do know this however, we have to stand up for labeling of our foods NOW, and if independent tests are refused by Monsanto a nationwide boycott of any company that uses their GM fake food in their products must be begun.
The choice is now clear for them:
Label it or face boycott.
Our safety and the health of our children and environment are more important than your stock price!We cannot and must not relent on the USDA to do all in it's power to reverse the... more
