Claimed to be
“the largest social movement in the world, with more than 400 million members,”
it’s
Via Campesina:
Enterremos el sistema alimentario industrial!Peasant agriculture as in local agriculture. It’s a global movement of locavores!
La agricultura campesina puede alimentar al mundo!
Bury the corporate food system!
Peasant agriculture can feed the world!
They’re planning an International day of Peasant’s Struggles on 17 April 2011: Continue reading
Here is peer-reviewed evidence that we are the guinea pigs
for worldwide experimentation on the food supply
using fatally-flawed science.
Experimentation that isn’t needed because we already know how to do it right.
We already knew Monsanto is blocking independent GMO research in the U.S. (L.A. Times op-ed) and there are numerous examples of Monsanto gaming regulatory systems. Now Ken Rosenboro of The Organic and Non-GMO Report tells us there’s peer-reviewed research that says:
…the technology is based on obsolete science, that biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have too much influence on government regulators and “public” universities, and that university scientists are ignoring the health and environmental risks of GM crops.The research is published as two papers by Don Lotter in the International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food:
Part 1: The Development of a Flawed Enterprise
Part 2: Academic Capitalism and the Loss of Scientific Integrity
In a 7 August 2009 article in FoodFirst, The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science, Don Lotter explains what’s in those two papers: Continue reading
This item horrified a lot of people:
Animal miscarriages from new fungus or virus in Roundup-read crops?
A reader asked:
What would you say to someone like myself who wants to make a difference but has no clue where to start? I think that is a big question with my generation.Well, there’s the pumpkin dance. But you don’t have to start with that.
HFCS may be the easiest thing to start with, because it’s labelled. Don’t buy any product that has High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in it. You’ll be surprised how many do. At restaurants, check the condiments, don’t use them if they have HFCS, and inform the wait staff why you’re not. When people ask why you’re doing all this tell them. Here’s some background on High Fructose Corn Syrup and Obesity.
This kind of thing is working: Hunts removes HFCS from all its Ketchups.
About pesticides, buy local and organic food, like at
Whisk.
Ask for local food at other stores.
Help with a community garden. Join a CSA. Write a letter to the editor.
You don’t have to do all of these things; these are some ideas. Start small and just do something. Every little bit helps, and you’ll get more ideas as you go along. Your example will help others start.
Also, don’t feel bad about it seeming intimidating. On the one hand we
have the most sophisticated marketing methods the world has ever known,
fueled by megabucks from transnational corporations. On the other hand we
have, er, a few college professors like Michael Pollan, a few farmers who
observe and analyze like Joel Sallatin, a few poets like south Georgia’s
own
Janisse Ray, and so on. Even so, local and organic food is one of
the few industries that has kept booming right through the economic
downturn. People actually want food that’s good for them and tastes good!
Fortunately, around here we also have Georgia Organics! More about that later.
-jsq
Moe’s to get new, fresher menu
By Jeremiah McWilliams, AJC, 13 Jan 2011:
The Atlanta-based burrito chain will roll out a new nationwide menu on Jan. 24, top executives told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Coming soon to 420-plus restaurants will be grass-fed sirloin steak with no added hormones. The pork will be hormone-free, steroid-free and grain-fed. Moe’s says its chicken will be hormone-free and not raised in cages, and the tofu will be organic.Sounds good to me. Why are they doing this?
“The Moe’s consumers have told us this is something they want,” said Paul Damico, president of the brand. “We take that information seriously. They tell us they want fresh, they want sustainable.”Voting at the checkout counter works!
They have three locations in Valdosta:
1525 Baytree Rd.
Valdosta, GA 31602
(229) 293-06633145 North Ashley Street
Valdosta, GA 31602
(229) 333-06491500 Patterson Street
Valdosta, GA 31698
229-259-2506
-jsq
PS: And I learned that Moe’s is based in Atlanta.
West African farmers have succeeded in cutting the use of toxic pesticides, increasing yields and incomes and diversifying farming systems as a result of an international project promoting sustainable farming practices.Here’s the problem they are addressing: Continue readingAround 100 000 farmers in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal are participating in a community-driven training programme (West African Regional Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) Programme) executed by FAO.
All that and paraquat doesn’t work on mutant pigweed, either. The whole “no-till” fable is unravelling.Monsanto’s Roundup, the agro-toxic companion herbicide for millions of acres of GM soybeans, corn, cotton, alfalfa, canola, and sugar beets, is losing market share. Its overuse has spawned a new generation of superweeds that can only be killed with super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4, D and paraquat. Moreover, patented “Roundup Ready” crops require massive amounts of climate destabilizing nitrate fertilizer. Compounding Monsanto’s damage to the environment and climate, rampant Roundup use is literally killing the soil, destroying essential soil microorganisms, degrading the living soil’s ability to capture and sequester CO2, and spreading deadly plant diseases.
In just one year, Monsanto has moved from being Forbes’ “Company of the Year” to the Worst Stock of the Year. The Biotech Bully of St. Louis has become one of the most hated corporations on Earth.
The article mentions scientific studies about bad health effects of genetically modified foods, and goes on to warn of Monsanto maneuverings through the EPA and the Gates Foundation. Then he points to the European Union as leading the way: Continue reading
Tom Philpott asks in Grist about
Why Monsanto is paying farmers to spray its rivals’ herbicides
…Monsanto has been forced into the unenviable position of having to pay farmers to spray the herbicides of rival companies.Roundup, trade name for glysophate, doesn’t work anymore because the weeds mutated: Continue readingIf you tend large plantings of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soy or cotton, genetically engineered to withstand application of the company’s Roundup herbicide (which will kill the weeds — supposedly — but not the crops), Monsanto will cut you a $6 check for every acre on which you apply at least two other herbicides. One imagines farmers counting their cash as literally millions of acres across the South and Midwest get doused with Monsanto-subsidized poison cocktails.
The move is the latest step in the abject reversal of Monsanto’s longtime claim: that Roundup Ready technology solved the age-old problem of weeds in an ecologically benign way.
Robert Langreth writes in Forbes that
Forbes Was Wrong On Monsanto. Really Wrong.
Forbes made Monsanto the company of the year last year in The Planet Versus Monsanto. I know because I wrote the article. Since then everything that could have gone wrong for the genetically engineered seed company….has gone wrong. Super-weeds that are resistant to its RoundUp weed killer are emerging, even as weed killer sales are being hit by cheap Chinese generics. An expensive new bioengineered corn seed with eight new genes does not look impressive in its first harvest. And the Justice Department is invesigating over antitrust issues. All this has led to massive share declines. Other publications are making fun of our cover story.Maybe Forbes should improve its “invesigating” [sic] skills.
-jsq
I remember that!
The month after Forbes did that,
Covalence did a survey that ranked Monsanto
the least ethical company in the world.
Worse than Philip Morris, Chevron, or Halliburton!
About that time we discovered Monsanto Corn Causes Liver and Kidney Damage in Rats, and that Monsanto’s GM soy causes sterility and five times higher infant mortality in hamsters.
Meanwhile, the
U.S. Department of Justice was
investigating Monsanto’s seed business. At least
seven U.S. states started their own
investigations, and later the U.S. EPA fined
Monsanto $2.5 million for selling seeds illegally in Texas counties where
they were banned.
Anyway, could all this bad news have some effect on Monsanto’s share price?
Continue reading 
Since then we’ve learned that
Pesticides Linked to ADHD.
Specifically organophosphate pesticides.
Like Glysophate (RoundUp).
And that indicators of pesticides, including organophosphates,
are found in the urine of 95% of school children.
We already knew that
Glysophoate causes birth defects in humans.
The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them.The article then tries to say they nonetheless benefited from genetic modification:The study, which looked at maize yields in the corn belt of the United States, found that farmers who continued to grow conventional crops actually earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties.
All farmers benefited from the significantly lower level of pests that came about after the introduction of GM maize to the US in 1996, but the conventional farmers who continued to cultivate non-GM varieties also benefited financially from not having to pay the extra costs of purchasing GM seeds.Um, what about not having to pay for the pesticides that go with the GM seeds? The study’s author admits they didn’t study that sort of thing:
The Telegraph spelled his name wrong. This appears to be the actual report:“Additionally, environmental benefits from corn borer suppression are likely occurring, such as less insecticide use, but these benefits have yet to be documented,” Dr Hutchinson said.
Areawide Suppression of European Corn Borer with Bt Maize Reaps Savings to Non-Bt Maize GrowersThe full text is behind a paywall, but the abstract concludes with:
W. D. Hutchison, E. C. Burkness, P. D. Mitchell, R. D. Moon, T. W. Leslie, S. J. Fleischer, M. Abrahamson, K. L. Hamilton, K. L. Steffey, M. E. Gray, R. L. Hellmich, L. V. Kaster, T. E. Hunt, R. J. Wright, K. Pecinovsky, T. L. Rabaey, B. R. Flood, and E. S. Raun (8 October 2010)
Science 330 (6001), 222. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1190242]
…and highlight economic incentives for growers to maintain non-Bt maize refugia for sustainable insect resistance management.So growing 98% of crops from GM seeds, as is the case in Georgia, is a bad idea.