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Five Major Non-Profit Organizations Participate in 5 Actions.com
Greenpeace, Global Exchange, Ocean Revolution, Rainforest Action Network and Organic Consumers are all part of 5Actions.com, a new hub for activisim and action.
Each non-profit sponsors an action that anyone, the expert activist or the uninitiated, can participate in and change the world... some of them are as simple as making S'MORES!
5 Actons motto is "You are about to change everything." What concerns you most: fair trade (chocolate), the oceans (plastic), energy (coal), trees (old growth forests), or food (GMOs)? You can do something about it.
The 5 Actions site is an initiative started by Stuart Townsend, the writer/director of Battle in Seattle, and implemented with the help of ANT-20 and Lori Wallach's Public Citizen.org.
I think this is a pretty cool idea. Why shouldn't non-profits band together to strengthen and support each other? What do you think of this? Is activism something that interests you? Do you think it's worth effort? Can simple actions change the world? Greenpeace, Global Exchange, Ocean Revolution, Rainforest Action Network and Organic Consumers are all part of 5Actions.com, a new hub... more -
Genetically modified seeds pose more problems than natural varieties
The processes of hybridization involving repeated combinations of genetic material were limited for a long time by the fact that natural reproduction only takes place between plants of the same species. But Genetic Engineering took off with the unravelling of the full structure of the DNA 20 years ago. It became possible to insert a gene of one species into the DNA of another, thus offering immense agricultural possibilities.
Some examples include the modification of plants that fix the nitrogen of the air without belonging to the Leguminous family, plants resistant to certain diseases or to dry environments; the possibility of producing drugs and vaccines by genetically modifying bacteria, and many others.
Farmers were thus promised higher incomes; traders were promised lower costs of production and better quality of produce; and the companies producing such foods saw huge profits appearing on the horizon through monopolies and patents of such modified foods. Naturally, their research showed that there was no difference between the natural and engineered foods, that these were safe, and that they would solve the problem of famine in the world.
But if GM foods were all that their producers claimed them to be, why was the process conducted by stealth and sprung on the public without notice? This policy of the fait accompli began with the US government, which neither informed nor consulted its citizens about GM crops nor, worse still, did it require GM foods to be labelled, so as to give the public the democratic choice of whether to buy or not. After this GM foods were imposed on one country after another, in the same utterly undemocratic atmosphere of secrecy.
For a full understanding of the import of GM foods, two sets of results need to be considered: social results on the countries that have adopted them and biological results of the genetically modified foods. Further, GM foods must be analysed as part and parcel of the much touted globalization,to which we now turn.
Dr Vandana Shiva is an India physicist, founder and president of the Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology, and one of India's leading activists. She describes in one of her papers how the transformation of peasant agriculture in India to a globally industrialized model, which has GM foods as a supporting pillar, has reduced food security, threatened local businesses and biodiversity, driven farmers off their lands, and opened the door for global corporations to take over the nation's food processing.
The common claim by globalization enthusiasts is that it is natural, inevitable, and evolutionary. Dr Shiva sees it otherwise. Globalization is not a natural process of inclusion. It is a planned project of exclusion that has siphoned the resources and knowledge of the poor of India onto the global marketplace, stripping people of their life-support systems, livelihoods, and lifestyles.
Global trade rules, as enshrined in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) and in the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement, are primarily camouflaged rules of robbery.
The WTO's overall goal: promoting market competition serves two purposes. First, it transforms culture, biodiversity, food, water, livelihoods, needs, and rights into commodities for sale to be conveyed to markets. Second, it justifies the destruction of nature, culture, and livelihoods in terms of rules of competition.
Its officials attack ethical and ecological rules that sustain and promote life, dubbing them as protectionist barriers to trade.
Globalized food and agriculture in effect, means the corporate takeover of the food chain, the erosion of food rights, the destruction of the cultural diversity of food and the biological diversity of crops, and the displacement of millions from land-based, rural livelihoods. The processes of hybridization involving repeated combinations of genetic material were limited for a long time by the fact that natur... more -
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Why Prince Charles is right: we need GM free food for food secu...
Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in some places like India these disasters have already had an impact at a global level, they are a disaster in the making.
It is therefore unscientific, illogical and irresponsible for the Environmental Minister Mr Woolas to say that Prince Charles must provide "proof" that a disaster has happened.
I would imagine that he is aware of the environmental principle on which the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change rest.
The principle is called the Precautionary Principle. It is based on the recognition that when an activity or technology has the potential to cause harm, and there is no conclusive evidence to establish the harm that can be caused, then policy and decision making must err on the side of caution.
The Environment Minister also said "Government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: 'Can GM crops help'?
Minister, if you could travel with me through Vidarbha and see the tears in the eyes of farmers' widows, you would be compelled to ask the question:'Can GM crops harm'? That is your moral responsibility.
It is also your responsibility to sincerely base your decisions on real science, not pseudo science. Science based policy would recognise that an agriculture that conserves biodiversity also produces more food and nutrition per unit acre.
Science based policy would recognise that if farmers fall into debt, it is not an instrument for ending poverty, but a recipe for ending the lives of small farmers.
A science based policy would not blindly spread GM crops to Africa without assessing their role in India's agrarian crisis. A science based policy would not be based on unscientific principle of "substantial equivalence" which has prevented independent and serious testing of GM foods and crops.
That is why the Supreme Court of India has served notice on the Government of India to ask why a GMO moratorium should not be imposed till proper testing protocols and tests and facilities for biosafety are in place.
end of excerpt.
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Dr. Vandana Shiva is one of the most passionate and knowledgable scholars and environmental activists on the topic of GM foods, the global water crisis, Monsanto ( bio technology), sustainability, and environmental democracy. I trust her words and her judgement on this implicitly as I too have done the research. The world needs to listen to and read her words as she speaks truth about the monopoly taking form to control both our food and water in the guise of companies stating they are pushing GM organisms on us for our own benefit, when it is really for their own.
GM foods and the poisons sprayed on them that are in our water and food are not sustainable and will not save this world from a food crisis, but may well perpetuate it especially in areas of severe drought. We have all the conventional food we need to feed this world save political corruption (World Bank) and those in power looking to deny it to those who need it most to suit their own political, economic, and ideological agendas. I hold Dr. Shiva in the highest esteem and take her word on this based on her years of experience over anyone looking to defend the monstrous crime being perpetrated by these biocompanies on our environment and our health. Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in some places like India these disasters have already... more -
Water is Life - Water Privatization Conflicts
In her book Water Wars, the Indian author Vandana Shiva lists nine principles underpinning water democracy. At least two of these principles are directly compromised by the privatization of water.... In her book Water Wars, the Indian author Vandana Shiva lists nine principles underpinning water democracy. At least two of these prin... more
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Small Farmers, Ecofeminism, Vandana Shiva
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 pest control have been getting more uniform. Le... more -
India: Farmers, civil societies seek scrapping of GMO bill
'The Coalition For GM-Free India', representing farmers' unions and civil society organisations today sought scrapping of the National Biotechnology Regulatory Bill-2008 pleading that 'its provisions are unscientific, undemocratic and amenable to reduce Indians as 'guinea pigs' for the promotion of Genetically Modified (GM) crops and GM foods.'
The Bill envisages setting up a National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) for ensuring a 'single widow' provision for speedy clearance of GM organisms and products. Such fast clearance mechanism is being put in place to facilitate the approval and propogation in India of GM organisms and products being developed by Monsanto and multinational companies, said a communique issued by the farmer leaders and experts from civil societies network after a-day-long deliberations here.
Being hurriedly pushed through, the Bill fixes a deadline for public feedback on July 30 to circumvent any worthwhile discussion organised in public domain by scientific community or arranged by the Department of Biotechnology (DGT), which has mooted the Bill, said Dr Devinder Sharma, a noted food and trade policy analyst.
''The proposed mechanism is an express clearing house for fast track approvals in favour of the biotech industry, at the expense of health and environment requisites,'' he added.
The NBRA proposals have been drawn up by the wrong people for the wrong reasons with the wrong perspectives, said Mr Yudhvir Singh, a leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. And the proposed Authority , he said, ''Denies and violates constitutional rights of the states on their agriculture and citizens rights to remain GM-free.'' This also creates a hurdle to progressive decisions made by the states including Kerala on implementating organic farming policies to protect farmers interests and imposes GM crops everywhere, Mr Singh said.
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Firstly, I just want to state that in response to the thread I posted this past weekend regarding paid shills or others voting these threads down to hide them... if there are, you lose. I am not going to be intimidated to stop reporting on this important issue for our very survival. What is being done in India as well as around the world by these biotech companies regarding GM crops is a travesty of Democracy and morality. I will not leave this or any site, especially current.com that gives me the chance to have this information dessiminated to people to hopefully effect change. Vote it down if you wish, but the information and truth of it will remain the same as will my resolve to report this information regardless.
Monsanto is an evil company that is preying upon developing countries as well as our own to shove these GM seeds down the throats of farmers already living in poverty. They will continue to deny them their Democratic right to liberty and our right to proper disclosure all in the name of profit at the expense of our global environment. It is companies like Monsanto that are raising food prices in collusion with the World Bank and WTO to push these seeds as well as privitizing water supplies, and it is companies like Monsanto that must be fought by informed consumers.
We have the right to know what is in our food, where our water comes from, and the right to say NO to any attempt to force these fake toxic foods upon us. If there is any way I and others here can effect that change, then I am going to continue to do it.
Thanks to all who responded in the other thread and also to the staff who explained the situation. Hopefully we will see a resolution. Current has a chance to be a true vanguard network for the people. I am grateful to have the chance to be a part of that. 'The Coalition For GM-Free India', representing farmers' unions and civil society organisations today sought scrapping ... more -
Monsanto-Indian Farmer Suicide
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/seeds_of_suicid.html Also see this link for more information on this tragedy.
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Saving The World's Seeds
Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization.
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Well those of use who are concerned about the globalization that has been contrived and yet made to look as if it is a natural evolutionary step, we are concerned about the injustice and undemocratic system on which it is based.
And everything we said, fifteen years ago, when these rules were being put in place, very artificially, under GAT and then became the WTO rules, or on the financial side as the instrumentalities and conditionalities of the World Bank and IMF, what we said fifteen years ago turns out not to have been an exaggeration but an underestimation of the devastation of both nature, society and economies.
I had talked about the WTO agreement on agriculture as the death knell for Indian farmers. Every year 16,000 farmers are being killed. They are taking their lives, but I don¹t think they are taking their lives. It is that they are being pushed to the edge of survival - through the indebtedness that is an inevitable result of turning them into a market for Monsanto seed, and, on the other hand disposable items, when Cargill and ConAgra have to dump subsidized grain through a liberalized agreement.
When I started to fight intellectual property rights in the WTO, I was concerned about patents on life. And seed patents now we can see what they are doing.
American farmers are being harassed, fined for three million dollars, and the crime is seed saving?
What could be a worse situation for humanity? To turn something as valuable as saving seeds for the future into a criminal activity.
Similar laws have just been passed in India, two weeks ago.
I think anyone who doesn't resist this kind of globalization is not being fully human, is not exercising their duties.
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More of this interview at the link. And what an opportune moment for the World Bank president to come out to say that food prices will he high until 2012 as if he really knows that. I have also read that pressure is being put on Europe to adopt GM foods. If I didn't know any better I would think this has all been planned to get a desired result for all of the world organizations working in tandem including The World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and governments of this world intent on keeping poor people down by controlling their food and water. Strangely, the song "Everybody Wants To Rule The World " is in my head now.
Thankfully there are people like Dr. Vandana Shiva and others speaking truth on this. We have to do so as well. We cannot allow this to be the future for our children. So if you have an organization that deals in organic seeds or seeds free of chemicals post it here. Let's really give some information to people to show them they have options and that we do not have to be enslaved to corporate BS any longer.
It is a threat to our health, other species, our environment, and our planet. Those who control the seeds and the water control YOU. I say, no more, and I will be relentless about it here. Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization. ... more -
From seeds of suicide to seeds of hope
The increasing costs of production and the falling farm prices that go hand in hand with globalisation and corporate hijack of seed supply, combined with the decline in farm credit is putting an unbearable debt burden on farmers. The lure of huge profits linked with clever advertising strategies evolved by the seeds and chemical industries are forcing farmers into a chemical treadmill and a debt trap. It has been witnessed that across the country, farmers are taking the desperate step of ending their life. The pesticides, which had created debt, also became the source of ending indebted lives. More than 150,000 farmers have committed suicide in India due to distortions introduced in agriculture as a result of trade liberalisation. More than 20,000 farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh alone. After the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2006, the suicide has increased alarmingly, reaching more than 1400 with debt trap cotton farmers putting an end to their lives in Vidharbha region alone.
snip
Apart from providing guidance and help to the farmers for the revival of agriculture, Navdanya, under the "Asha ke Beej" (Seeds of Hope) program, distributed the indigenous variety of seeds to the farmers and encouraged them to shift to organic and sustainable agriculture. More than 6000 farmers were distributed indigenous seeds.
Navdanya also realized that one of the crisis farmers were facing was a seed famine created by Monsanto. Navdanya therefore started a seed bank in Kalaspur village. And on 2nd and 3rd June seeds were distributed from the seed bank in villages in Vidharbha.
Navdanya is committed to ending the vicious cycle of violence in agriculture, which is leading to farmers' suicides. We are committed to strengthening the virtuous cycles of peace based on cooperation with nature and among communities to promote a sustainable and life enhancing food system.
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People taking it upon themselves to fight Monsanto and give people hope gives me hope. Dr. Vandana Shiva is a woman who has been fighting for farmers and women, and against Monsanto and corporate ownership of seeds and resources including water for years. She is a heroine whom I personally love and respect very much for her tireless work on behalf of others. The increasing costs of production and the falling farm prices that go hand in hand with globalisation and corporate hijack of seed su... more -
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Now Monsanto Is After Our Water
For years now, Monsanto has been buying up seed, plant and biotech companies in order to establish control over the world's food. According to Mr Robert Farley of Monsanto, "what you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it's really a consolidation of the entire food chain. Since water is as central to food production as seed is, and without water life is not possible, Monsanto is now trying to establish its control over water. During 1999, Monsanto plans to launch a new water business, starting with India and Mexico, since both these countries are facing water shortages."
In other words, the crisis of pollution and depletion of water resources is viewed by Monsanto as a business opportunity:
"The business logic of sustainable development is that population growth and economic development will apply increasing pressure on the natural resource markets... These are the markets that are most relevant to us as a life sciences company committed to delivering food, health and hope to the world, and there are markets in which there are predictable sustainability challenges and therefore opportunities to create business value."
The crisis of pollution and depletion of water resources
is viewed by Monsanto as a business opportunity.
By 2010 about 2.5 billion people in the world are projected to lack access to safe drinking water. At least 30 per cent of the population in China, India, Mexico and the US is expected to face severe water stress. By 2025, the supply of water in India will be 700 cubic km per year, while the demand is expected to rise to 1,050 units. Control over this scarce and vital resource will, of course, be a source of guaranteed profits. As John Bastin of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has said, "Water is the last infrastructure frontier for private investors."
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Dr. Vandana Shiva, author of the book, Water Wars, and renowned environmentalist and activist for environmental democracy knows full well of the intentions of Monsanto. Their true intent must be brought to light to as many people as possible. Their intent is world domination of food and water sources at the expense of many lives by taking advantage of others' misery for their own economic benefit. And it isn't just control of the seeds, it is control of the water that grows them. Insidious. For years now, Monsanto has been buying up seed, plant and biotech companies in order to establish control over the world's food.... more -
Food, Forests, and Fuel
An excellent commentary by Dr.Vandana Shiva who has been at the forefront of fighting for environmental democracy for many years. In this article she lays out the false solutions for climate change being used and discusses real ones. The problem however, is bringing down the old guard (mainly the WTO and The World Bank) that keeps perpetuating the false solutions for their own economic benefit at the expense of the poor. How can the world's poor gain an equal footing? An excellent commentary by Dr.Vandana Shiva who has been at the forefront of fighting for environmental democracy for many years. In t... more
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Dr. Vandana Shiva
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Dr. Vandana Shiva
