This is really big. I feel myself stepping up on the soapbox, Oh yeah here it comes… Can I be strong? OK I’ll try to temper it and drastically abbreviate the thoughts screaming across my synapses.
Whatever is stated in the next few paragraphs can not begin to illustrate the severity of the GMO insanity.
Most people have no idea of the extent, the depth, the cost, the insanity, the invasiveness, pervasiveness, the history or the proposed future of GMO insanity. And most people surveyed think that they have never eaten GMO junk, while virtually everyone in the US has eaten a bunch, and eats it every day…
Also the vast majority of people surveyed say they do not want to touch the stuff.
The Japanese government says that they will watch the [Experiment] in the US for ten years before they even consider the nonsense.
It just tics me off to think that 7,000 years ago Indian people in middle America started working with a little sprig a wild grass and through careful attention worked with that spark of nourishment over countless generations, eventually developing that little green blade into many distinct, colorful, richly nutritious, high yield varieties of maize, corn that feeds the masses, the common folk, it grows happily in marginal soil, with little water and no application of poison.
What started 7,000 years ago, is the product of immeasurable devotion by hundreds-of-thousand of dedicated people-of-the-Earth, and only in resent history (After 6,000 years) really resulted in anything resembling the big fat ears with which we are familiar today, is all threatened.
Threatened and likely ruined for all foreseeable time so that
Monsanto and cohorts could stuff more temporal green into there pockets. Out of inexcusable ignorance or selfish carelessness these guys buy bigger limos and more vacation homes while ruining essential plant diversity virtually for ever, and poisoning the people and the planet in a whole new way…
The above is just one example, huge in itself, and the attached implications, but small in the whole huge mess that is the GMO insanity.
It stretches the skull till it hurts trying to hold in ones’ head all the despicable antics going on within the design of this particular business venture, compliments of the feds all the way to the top who conspire with Monsanto and the likes.
Check out Jeffrey M. Smith’s bestselling book on GM foods. It’s rated number one on the subject by the Ecologist.
It documents attempted bribes, fired and threatened scientists, hijacked regulatory agencies, cover-ups, rigged research, and the ways in which industry manipulation and political collusion got genetically modified (GM) foods approved.
It also explains why the foods directly and immediately threaten our health…………….
Spilling the Beans is a monthly column available at www.responsibletechnology.org.
The ability to produce food in the future is at great risk, as is the immediate and long term health of everyone who comes in contact with these perverted and contaminated “Un-Foods”…
This is really big. I feel myself stepping up on the soapbox, Oh yeah here it comes… Can I be strong? OK I’ll try to temper it and drastically abbreviate frustrating sparks of thought exploding between the synapses of my brain.
Whatever is stated in the next few paragraphs can not begin to illustrate the severity of the “GMO INSANITY”.
And in case you are tempted to blow-off this information as the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist or dooms day-er, forget it.
I realize that people may not want to face the severity of the situation or believe that there are corporate connivers so deranged in their thinking and malicious in their goals. And I understand that you may feel betrayed to learn that the governmental overseers are looking the other way and selling out the people they are paid (And is some cases sworn) to protect.
But it is fact that the ability to produce food in the future is at great risk, as is the immediate and long term health of everyone who comes in contact with these perverted and contaminated “Un-Foods”. And the citizens in North America (The U.S. and Canada) are almost the only people in the entire world who largely don’t seem to care. Such a state of apathy, indifference and/or complacent unawareness is unique to North Americans but a serious threat to Humans and all animals and plants worldwide.
Most people have no idea of the extent, the depth, the cost, the insanity, the invasiveness, pervasive-ness, the history or the proposed future of GMO insanity. And most people surveyed think that they have never eaten GMO junk, while virtually everyone in the US has eaten a bunch, and eats it every day… Also the vast majority of people surveyed say they do not want to touch the stuff.
The criminals in this “Takeover-of-the-Food-Supply” scheme have amazingly succeeded in banning information on the inclution of genetically modified ingredients from the labels of your food.
The lying, cheating, self-serving hoodlums say it [GMO] is a good thing, but they refuse to tell the consumer where they sneak it into your food or to honestly disclose the results of tests that clearly demonstrate otherwise.
The Japanese government says that they will watch [the experiment] in the US for ten years before they even consider the non-sense.
It just ticks me off to think that 7,000 years ago Indian people in middle America started working with a little sprig a wild grass, and through careful attention worked with that “spark of nourishment” over countless generations, eventually developing that little green blade into many distinct, colorful, richly nutritious, high yield varieties of maize, (corn) that feeds the masses, the common folk. And it grows happily in marginal soil, with little water and zero application of poison.
What started 7,000 years ago, and is the product of immeasurable devotion by hundreds-of-thousand of dedicated people-of-the-Earth, and only in resent history (After 6,000 years of development) really resulted in anything resembling the big, fat, juicy ears with which we are familiar today, is all threatened.
It is likely ruined for all foreseeable time, just so that Monsanto big shots and various crooked public servants paid by the people can stuff more temporal green into their pockets. The shortsighted idiots buy longer limousines and higher condos with ill-gotten profits as they ruin essential plant diversity virtually for ever, and poison the people and the planet in a whole new way…
This is but one example, huge in itself, and the attached implications, but small within the whole huge mess that is the “GMO Insanity”.
It stretches the skull till it hurts trying to hold in my head all the despicable conniving, going on within the design of this particular business venture, with full cooperation of the feds, all the way to the top, who are far to friendly with Monsanto and the likes. And it all goes on behind closed doors, with no oversight and zero accountability and without the consent of the people.
Check out Jeffrey M. Smith’s best-selling book on GM foods (Seeds of Deception), it’s rated number one on the subject by the Ecologist. It documents bribes, fired and threatened scientists, hijacked regulatory agencies, cover-ups, rigged research, and the ways in which industry manipulation and political collusion got genetically modified (GM) foods approved in the first place. It also explains why the modified un-foods threaten our health…………….
Spilling the Beans is a monthly column available at
What a great idea NOT. Monsanto developed a Roundup Resistant (RR) gene which it has already incorporated into many different crops, and is apparently planning to introduce in many more around the once clean/healthy world. Incorporating the same gene into different food crops makes a major part of the world’s food supply vulnerable to a SINGLE disease. Good idea? NO!
The historical precedent for this fear was the introduction of a single gene into 85% of the US corn crop. In 1970 a disease epidemic attacked all corn plants containing that specific pleiotropic gene. The epidemic panicked the US stock market and threatened the existence of the 1971 crop. When the disease specific to the RR gene appears, world starvation is likely. And the squeeze will be felt more by people on the SAD (Standard American Diet), as these people eat and drink molecular spin-offs of corn at every meal… In a really big way. Corn, in some form is a major ingredient in at least 85% of all the so-called food on the supermarket shelves (Excluding fresh produce).
At the present time, use of Roundup (Poison) in the Drug War in Columbia and other South American and Latin American countries directly threatens the lives of the indigenous population. For water quality and human health, the risk from Roundup may lie in part in the impurities it contains. Monsanto’s Poison sickens and kills wildlife, indigenous plants and people, right on their own property.
Just a few short decades ago, the only way to remove weeds competing with crops was by hand. Local families, on small farms did the work, grew the food and had a lively-hood and a healthy life.
Then scientists discovered they could replace people, out there breathing fresh air, with designer chemicals. However, these chemicals are very toxic to people as well as the environment, and must removed by water systems to produce pure drinking water. Good Idea? NO!
Monsanto had been marketing Roundup (glyphosate) as a major part of the company income, getting fatter and fatter from poisoning the planet and her life-forms, but the patent was due to expire.
The Drs. Frankenstein at Monsanto needed a way to hook growers on their particular brand of poison long term.
Therefore, the company developed a roundup resistant (RR) gene and incorporated it into soybeans, canola (Rapeseed), corn, and other crops. Without the RR gene, these crops are killed when Roundup is applied to kill weeds (Small Wonder). With the RR gene, the crops survive Roundup application. The company loves this of course because now the people working the fields can dump even more “Earth Killing, People Killing Poison” on the land and the adultered crop plants will survive.
They will be sickly and deranged, and saturated with higher amounts of poison, but they will go to market, and they will end up on your table and become part of your body.
Monsanto controls production of the seeds and requires farmers to sign legal agreements stating that they will use Roundup to control weeds in their crops and that they will not replant seeds they produce nor distribute them to their neighbors. Monsanto is also working to control the water farmers need to grow crops. In other words…
Monsanto is developing a business in which it has total control of the world food supply. This sounds like a twisted sci-fi horror movie, but is very real.
Hybrid corn is the basis for the US food supply and economy. Producing hybrid seed requires some manipulation in the field.
Scientists developed a gene (cytoplasmic male sterility – CMS) to artificially streamline the process. It produced high profit for its corporate users who used it to produce 85% of US corn crop. CMS was exalted as the ultimate scientific achievement—until 1970 when a disease adapted specifically to that gene produced an epidemic of Southern Corn Leaf Blight (SCLB) and struck down a major part of the corn crop, threatening the existence of the 1971 crop and throwing the stock market into a panic.
A quarter century elapsed from introduction of the CMS gene to the CMS-SCLB destruction of part of our food supply. The RR gene has been used only since 1996 and is now a component of a rapidly expanding part of our food supply. Monsanto declared RR safe, but no testing has been done to see whether it is a pleiotropic gene as was the CMS gene.
The fine folks at the FDA leave any testing and reporting on all this unprecedented, experimental manipulation of the foundation-of-life up to the guys who profit from the technology. Good idea? NO!
Plant diseases seldom move from one species of plant to another because they are genetically unique enough. However, the RR gene incorporated into many species breaks the normal species boundary restraints. When a disease adapts to the RR gene it can quickly destroy other food crops. WORLD STARVATION?
The literature indicates that Roundup is a “relatively” safe compound. A really stupid statement, and not at all born out by the state of health of the poor people who work with it, or by analyses done on soil and water samples contaminated with the stuff. Daah, it’s poison.
Anyway, that misleading positive information originates with Monsanto, a company known to manipulate statistics to its own advantage, and cycle its employees into critical governmental regulatory roles, building a major part of its income on graft. Numerous top level government officials have also been high ups in Monsanto and other AG Chem corporations, in some cases, moving back and forth between the government office and the chemical company seat.
No chemical compound is ever totally pure. In the case of Agent Orange, one of Monsanto’s income producing giants during the Vietnam War, dioxin was a critical impurity whose effects are still being felt.
There are now fourth generation Agent Orange/Dioxin victims being born with severe physical deformities and mental diseases in Vietnam and Cambodia. Reliable testimony and clear documentation shows that the chemical giants producing the stuff knew that it was profoundly poisonous to humans. Do you think we should trust these guys with the world’s food supply and our health? Remember there is no government oversight of GMO insanity, and if there were, the ‘oversight’ [undersight] would be provided by the same overlords that instructed the U.S. solders to mix-up and apply the herbicide casually, with no protective gear and no exposure limitations.
Who thinks it’s a good idea to knowingly induce people to eat substances that are;
The most serious potential food security threat ever faced.
More heavily laden with systemic and surface poisonous chemical contamination.
Proven to cause life threatening allergic reactions,
Likely to lead to organ failure and as yet indefinable imbalances in the living systems of consumers.
Through unavoidable cross-contamination make organic produce a thing of the past, and in fact make it virtually impossible to grow any plant (Or animal, Human included) that is not genetically deranged.
Have been shown very likely to be able to cause the “Manufacture” of pesticides inside the gut of the consumer.
Lead to dramatic increases in the release of poisonous agricultural chemicals into the environment.
Produce genetic cross mutation of all seed baring plants to the extent that virtually all foods become effectively sterile and cease to reproduce… Breatharianism is looking better all the time.
Allow for the complete extinction of all common food plants via an ultimately unavoidable single epidemic blight able to kill all plants of all species due to their common contamination with an “Introduced” runaway gene.
I have not reflected the FDA in a very positive light and with good reason, as it is that agency’s duty to guard against such malfeasance as demonstrated by this GMO-ing of the food supply. In fact the FDA should function as a fail-safe in the system to help prevent malicious, opportunistic corporate takeover of government. But it continues to fail miserably.
In all fairness the FDA is part of the web of governmental administrative entities the whole of which is influenced and can be pressured by the White House, and in fact both Bill Clinton and (Of course) George Bush are supporters of GMO-isation.
Also, I know that some, and suspect that many employees at the FDA have tried to make superiors aware of some of the serious problems associated with this Bio-tech experiment, but have been aggressively silenced… At a Research University or regulatory agency you pretty much can’t keep your job, career, or reputation if you buck the chemical giants.
We may be able to save our food and save ourselves, although some scientists don’t see how.
Everything, everything “Good” is possible.
Even though the Monsantos have applied for transgenic patents in some 80 countries, still almost all other countries resist. Many maintain partial of complete bans on the alien foods and the technology that produces it even though the U.S. continues to strong-arm the rest of the world to buy into the mistake that Bush’s and Clinton’s chemical buddies are selling. President Obama’s, appointment of Tom Vilsack as the USDA’s agriculture secretary is disheartening and looks like business as usual as Mr.Vilsack is a GMO fan.
Remember, we can say no. “JUST SAY NO”.
Until things began to swing back towards sanity, you’ll have to be very selective if you buy packaged food and shop at a standard grocery store. But that does not have to be a problem. You can shop at a “Real Food Store” and at local markets Etc.
You know, demand still drives the market. The GMOers have been working hard to “Invent” a demand, but virtually no consumer actually wants or prefers GMO contaminated food, it’s just that, for some reason, North Americans have not bothered to vocally resist.
Lots of other countries “Just Say No”, and of course, so far the Monsanto-ish thugs keep pressuring and lobbying, but so far most countries are resisting effectively.
But there has been some “Seepage” lately as some test fields have been planed and planted in England which has long been a model of sanity and vigilance (The chemical gangsters will do what they can get away with, but I don’t think that the Britts will buy the fake-food), and in India as well… That a very sad story.
We need to show the purveyors, all the way from the retailers and restaurants up to the producers that we will not be GMO guinea pigs. By our purchase choices, we simply need to demonstrate that “We’re not going there”. With our choices we can shut down the “Gene Gangsters”.
If you think it would be difficult or particularly inconvenient, don’t. My family has always shopped selectively. It’s simply a more rewarding experience all the way around. There is nothing hard about being selective… It just provides you with better stuff.
If you think that we shouldn’t have to bother to pay attention to what we are going to eat, please remember that all throughout history people, well “smart people” have always taken some care in choosing foods. Our duller minded ancestors who just picked or picked-up anything as they walked through the forest or over the plane did not live to eat many more meals. It’s the same today.
And by the way, because some consumers have always demanded “Real Food”, things have improved dramatically in the past 20 – 30 years with respect to the availability and variety of organic and otherwise higher quality food.
So if we all refuse to buy “Fake Food”, we will of course enjoy life and the activity of eating more, we will be healthier and we will help insure lasting food security for our children.
How to avoid foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
In 2005, while most of us weren’t looking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) quietly changed the classification of Roundup Ready sugar beets from regulated to deregulated, now GM beets can be planted without a special permit.
That deregulation will harm organic farmers and consumers, and exacerbate the growing epidemic of herbicide resistant weeds.”
Critics point out that Roundup Ready crops encourage (Actually demand) increased chemical use, with damaging effects on everyone’s health (Present and future) and the environment. In addition to contaminating soil and water, pesticides leave dangerous residue on food plants themselves, and then in the people and other animals who eat them.
The [puppet] Environmental Protection Agency has now complied with a Monsanto request to increase the allowable levels of glyphosate (POISON) residue on sugar beet roots by 5000 percent. That’s 5,000% more of Monsanto’s favorite poison in a popular food and a ubiquitous ingredient in zillions of everyday foods. Thanks for nothing EPA (Environmental POLLUTING Agency).
Another problem is that such plants encourage the development of “superweeds” that are resistant to Roundup.
In a way analogous to the casual abuse of antibiotics leading to the creation of drug resistant super- bacteria, overuse of Roundup eventually breeds Roundup-resistant weeds.
According to USDA data in the 10 years after the 1994 introduction of Roundup Ready crops, herbicide use increased by 15 times.
Ninety-nine percent of U.S. superweeds are resistant to Roundup.
Since corn syrup, and the high-tech High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) are even more widely used sweeteners than beet or cane sugar, and almost all the corn grown in the United States is also Roundup Ready, nearly all sweetened food in the United States is GM. Because U.S. law (Written by Monsanto) does not require labeling of GM ingredients, consumers of products from candy to breakfast cereal (And actually of 80% of all supermarket junk food… It isn’t only ‘sweetened foods) will soon be unknowingly exposed to engineered sugar, with unknown health consequences.
Currently Commercialized GM Crops in the U.S.:
(Number in parentheses represents the estimated percent that is genetically modified.)
Soy (89%)
Cotton (83%)
Canola (75%)
Corn (70 – 85%)
Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%)
Alfalfa, zucchini and yellow squash (?)
Tobacco (Quest® brand)
And of course:
Dairy products from cows injected with rbGH.
Food additives, enzymes, flavorings, and processing agents, including the sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet®) and rennet used to make hard cheeses
Meat, eggs, and dairy products from animals that have eaten GM feed
Honey and bee pollen that may have GM sources of pollen
Contamination or pollination caused by GM seeds or pollen
Billy
How to avoid foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
20 percent of the human genome is now owned by corporations.
Having children is now against U.S. patent law
Fully 20 percent of the human genome is now owned by corporations. The natural act of reproducing or giving birth to children is now a violation of U.S. patent law. Technically, the corporations that “own” these human genes could sue the parents of newborns, demanding royalty payments for the use of what the law of the land considers their intellectual property.
Under our very noses, (which may some day be owned by a chemical company), control of, and the rights to our bodies and/or our children’s bodies have been handed over to chemical and pharmaceutical corporations… With the full support of our federal government… In fact taxpayers have footed much of the bill for the takeover.
The reality that heartless corporate giants in cahoots with the Feds have finagled there way into the very cells of our family tree is shocking to consider. Shocking yes, but not surprising to those of us who have been watching the larcenous high jacking of the world’s food supply and medicinal plants which was well underway by the early nineties.
If you live in the U.S., you have actually paid to have your grandchildren kidnapped and the control of our future food supply put into the hands of white collar gangsters, modern day “Technology Gangsters” who are able to operate the same way that organized crime always has, with pay-offs to government officials and intimidation of anyone who stands up for freedom.
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Want to know more shocking facts about intellectual property and the future of food, agriculture and human civilization? See
The Future of Food, a film by Deborah Koons Garcia, an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.
Also, do yourself a favor and visit the Center for Food safety Center for Food safety a non-profit organization that’s been doing the oversight job our own government should have been doing. But since the people who run the USDA, EPA and FDA are the very same people who occupy top positions in the most powerful agricultural organizations in the world, the U.S. government has no intention whatsoever to protect the public from financial exploitation by influential corporations (regardless of the cost to the future of life on planet Earth). It’s the same story with Big Pharma, as you no doubt already realize.
Review: The Future of Food, a must-see documentary that exposes the biotech threat to life on our planet
by Mike Adams
There is a cabal of power-hungry corporations that are systematically destroying humanity’s future. These companies have taken over the food supply, injected pesticides, viruses and invading genes into staple crops, engineered “terminator” genes that make crop seeds unviable, destroyed the livelihood of farmers and used every tactic they could think of — legal threats, intimidation, bribery, monopolistic market practices and many more — to gain monopolistic control over the global food supply.
One documentary brings you this astonishing story. Through the testimony of family farmers, ecological scientists, agricultural experts and numerous public documents, The Future of Food tells a horrifying, heart-stopping story of how Big Agriculture has sold out the future of human civilization for the almighty dollar.
The Future of Food is a compelling, eye-opening documentary that I consider a “must-see documentary” by anyone who eats food (which probably includes you). Even if you think you know everything worth knowing about your food, there’s still a dark secret the biotech companies believe U.S. consumers should not be allowed to know: That many foods are genetically engineered with dangerous pesticides and foreign DNA, and there is currently no U.S. law requiring their labeling as such.
Do whatever it takes to see this documentary. Buy it, rent it, or view it online by clicking here ….. The Future of Food, …..to watch it on Google Video. Just make sure you watch this film.
This is an extremely important documentary for our time. Don’t make another trip to the grocery store without seeing this film!
The future of humanity is determined by the future of food
What’s at stake here is not merely control over today’s food profits.
The actions taken by Big Agriculture are systematically destroying the very agricultural biodiversity that will one day be desperately needed to save us from a global food crash. And at the same time these multinational agricultural giants are destroying our food biodiversity, they’re also patenting seeds, then using imperialistic intellectual property law to extort profits from farmers, universities and research institutions all over the world.
The whole problem of genetically engineered crops became a tidal wave of trouble following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ill-fated decision in 1980 to allow corporations to patent life. The patenting of the first genetically engineered microbe opened the floodgates to corporate greed, and it wasn’t long before Big Ag firms began patenting every seed they could get their hands on (a process called “biopiracy”), stealing the inventions of nature and declaring them to be their own.
Today, an astonishing 20 percent of the human genome is now owned by corporations. The simple act of reproducing by having children is now a violation of U.S. patent law. Technically, the corporations that “own” these human genes could sue the parents of all newborns, demanding royalty payments for the use of their intellectual property.
Want to know more shocking facts about intellectual property and the future of food, agriculture and human civilization? See The Future of Food for yourself. And while you’re at it, be sure to visit the Center for Food safety (www.centerforfoodsafety.org), a non-profit organization that’s been doing the oversight job our own government should have been doing. But since the people who run the USDA, EPA and FDA are the very same people who occupy top positions in the most powerful agricultural organizations in the world, the U.S. government has no intention whatsoever to protect the public from financial exploitation by influential corporations (regardless of the cost to the future of life on planet Earth). It’s the same story with Big Pharma, as you no doubt already realize.
The coming food bubble
Curious how modern civilization might ultimately end? In previous articles, I’ve discussed the coming food bubble — a global collapse of the food abundance we naively enjoy today. Depending on who you talk to, this collapse of the global food supply could be caused by the end of peak oil, a collapse of bioversity followed by widespread crop blight, the depletion of freshwater tables, radical weather patterns caused by global warming, or the widespread disruption of global ecosystems through the continued use of synthetic chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, etc.)
Each of these explanations sounds like bad news to me. Any one of them could conceivably pose a major threat to the future of our global food supply. And yet the real news is even worse: We’re facing all of these threats at once!
Biotechnology companies claim they’re coming to the rescue with a new breed of genetically engineered crops that can produce more food, with greater farming efficiency, than ever before. What they don’t tell you is that these GM foods contain pesticides and their use encourages the massive dumping of herbicides on croplands by farmers. Those synthetic chemicals wash right off the farms and into the aquatic ecosystems (rivers, wetlands, oceans) where they are creating “dead zones” that can’t even support aquatic life.
It’s all being done for the sake of the almighty dollar. Corporations (and the governments they control) are sacrificing the very future of human civilization in order to boost next quarter’s profits. The food supply is now toxic, the environment is being systematically destroyed, and government departments that should be protecting the public are now operating as marketing branches of the very companies they should be prosecuting for endangering the public.
How goes the food, so goes the nation
Modern agriculture has literally and figuratively lost its roots. Seeds that were created by nature are now patented and owned by corporations; genetically engineered crops that never passed any sort of rigorous safety testing have long since been approved as G.R.A.S. by the FDA (meaning safe for use in foods); governments continue to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the growing of genetically engineered corn (coated with Monsanto herbicides, by the way); and the FDA continues to insist that the U.S. public has no right to know which foods are genetically engineered because it might “confuse them.”
That’s how the U.S. government views the average American these days — as a stupid, misinformed “feeder and breeder” who has no capacity to read labels or make informed decisions about what’s in their food. Just pay your taxes, buy your junk food, put your babies on Prozac and shut the heck up, okay?
And the situation looks like it’s only going to get worse. In America, at least. Europeans, Canadians and practically everyone else in the world is way ahead of the game on this. In Europe, genetically engineered foods must be clearly labeled, and many countries have actually banned GM exports from the United States (about which the U.S. screams like a carjacking victim, citing international trade sanctions and promising economic retribution towards any country that doesn’t swallow genetically engineered U.S. crops).
American consumers have remained in the dark on this issue for so long that it’s frankly a little embarrassing to me, as an American, to admit. But this documentary, The Future of Food can help educate consumers around the world and rally them to support an outright ban on genetically engineered crops in the food supply. After all, who wants viruses in their corn? Who wants the entire food supply owned and controlled by evil corporations that have clearly demonstrated they have no concern whatsoever for public health or sustainable farming?
What you can do right now
So how do you, as a consumer, combat the evils of these out-of-control corporations and failed government regulators? Here’s a quick list of action items that will help you stay informed and empowered:
1. View the documentary. Make sure you watch The Future of Food.
2. Shop for NON-GMO foods. Buy organic, and look for non-GMO labels on the foods you purchase. If you’re not sure what’s genetically modified and what isn’t, rest assured that most of the brand-name products made by the largest food corporations contain one or more genetically modified ingredients. The most common are corn and soybeans. So buy food and food products from small, local companies or “natural” food manufacturers. Visit your local food coop. Eat local!
3. Support legislative efforts to require the labeling of genetically modified food ingredients. I’m not aware of any such pending legislation that’s anywhere close to a vote, but if such legislation appears on the horizon, you can count on NewsTarget to rally readers to the cause. Make sure you’re a subscriber to receive our email alerts. Click here to subscribe (free).
4. Read the Center for Food Safety report on pharmaceutical rice. Click here to download the report now (PDF). This is an important report to read if you want to understand how drug companies are now trying to turn nature’s crops into pharmaceutical factories, placing the safety of the entire national food supply at great risk.
5. Share information with others. Spread the word on our CounterThink cartoons. Just click on any cartoon you see on this page, then you can send it to a friend or post it on your website (please include a link back to us). Take part in consumer activism by posting your own blog or articles on this topic. Help spread the word about the dangers of genetically engineered crops!
Together, we can fight the corporate takeover of our food supply. If we stay informed, focused and committed to protecting nature, we can end the secrecy and get GM crops either labeled on foods or banned outright. In time, we may even be able to overthrow modern patent law and ultimately ban the patenting of seeds, genes and living entities. In time, I hope to see the ending of patent law on all medicines, too.
Patents on genes, seeds, foods and medicines should have never been allowed. These things belong to the people (actually, they belong to no one except nature). They certainly do not belong to any corporation. Personally, I refuse to recognize these invalid patent laws which are artificially constructed by the U.S. patent office. There is no such thing as corporate ownership over a seed, there is only the illusion of such ownership. Patent law is a social and legal construct, and it can be demolished just as easily as it was fabricated. In time, if enough consumers join in these efforts to save themselves from corporate tyranny, we can take back ownership and control over our food, our genes and our lives.
It will not be an easy task, and it will require a lot of information and grassroots advocacy. The Future of Food is a great ally in this fight, and the Center for Food Safety deserves your goodwill and financial support. Please consider donating to this organization to help fund even more pro-consumer action that challenges the regulatory failures of the USDA, FDA and EPA.
GMOs
This is really big. I feel myself stepping up on the soapbox, Oh yeah here it comes… Can I be strong? OK I’ll try to temper it and drastically abbreviate the thoughts popping my synapse.
Whatever is stated in the next few paragraphs can not begin to illustrate the severity of the GMO insanity. Most people have no idea of the extent, the depth, the cost, the insanity, the invasiveness, pervasiveness, the history or the proposed future of GMO insanity. And most people surveyed think that they have never eaten GMO crap, while virtually everyone in the US has eaten a bunch, and eats it every day… Also the vast majority of people surveyed say they do not want to touch the stuff.
The Japanese government says that they will watch the [Experiment] in the US for ten years before they even consider the shit.
It just pisses me off to think that 7,000 years ago Indian people in middle America started working with a little sprig a wild grass and through careful attention worked with that spark of nourishment over countless generations, eventually developing that little green blade into many distinct, colorful, richly nutritious, high yield varieties of maize, corn that feeds the masses, the common folk, it grows happily in marginal soil, with little water and no application of poison. What started 7,000 years ago, is the product of immeasurable devotion by hundreds-of-thousand of dedicated people-of-the-Earth, and only in resent history (After 6,000 years) really resulted in anything resembling the big fat ears with which we are familiar today, is all threatened, likely ruined for all foreseeable time so that Monsanto and lots of crooks paid by the people could stuff more temporal green into there pockets. The freaking idiots buy a new limo and ruin essential plant diversity virtually for ever, and poison the people and planet in a whole new way… One example, huge in itself, and the attached implications, but small in the whole huge mess that is the GMO insanity.
It stretches the skull till it hurts trying to hold in ones’ head all the despicable shit going on within the design of this particular business venture, compliments of the feds all the way to the top who sleep with Monsanto and the likes.
Check out Jeffrey M. Smith’s bestselling book on GM foods it’s rated number one on the subject by the Ecologist. It documents attempted bribes, fired and threatened scientists, hijacked regulatory agencies, cover-ups, rigged research, and the ways in which industry manipulation and political collusion got genetically modified (GM) foods approved. It also explains why the foods threaten our health…………….
Spilling the Beans is a monthly column available at www.responsibletechnology.org.
Percy & Louise Schmeiser Named Recipients of the Right Livelihood Award
Mr. Schmeiser is pleased with victory over Monsanto
In an out of court settlement finalized on March 19, 2008, Percy Schmeiser has settled his lawsuit with Monsanto. Monsanto has agreed to pay all the clean-up costs of the Roundup Ready canola that contaminated Schmeiser’s fields. Also part of the agreement was that there was no gag-order on the settlement and that Monsanto could be sued again if further contamination occurred. Schmeiser believes this precedent setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted Roundup Ready canola or any other unwanted GMO plants.
2007 RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARDS HIGHLIGHT SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL CHALLENGES
The 2007 Right Livelihood Award is shared between four Recipients, who show that there are available, practical solutions to pressing global challenges:
Percy and Louise Schmeiser (Canada) have given the world a wake-up call about the dangers to farmers and biodiversity everywhere from the growing dominance and market aggression of companies engaged in the genetic engineering of crops.
The Jury honours the Schmeisers “for their courage in defending biodiversity and farmers’ rights, and challenging the environmental and moral perversity of current interpretations of patent laws” stated Jakob von Uexkull of the Right Livelihood Award.
Most world governments will have nothing to do with GMO food crops.
Most U.S. citizens don’t want to eat the stuff.
Yet, without the people’s consent or due process, poison transgenic plants have been scattered over ‘public’ lands:
ONE-THIRD OF U.S. WILDLIFE REFUGES USE GM CROPS IN SOUTHEAST
Genetically Modified Seeds Okayed by Obama Fish & Wildlife Service Director Pick Hamilton
Washington, DC – One-third of National Wildlife Refuges in
the Southeast U.S. are growing genetically modified crops with approval
from the official tapped by the Obama White House to head the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service, according to agency records obtained today by
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Planting GM
crops on a wildlife refuge is illegal without full prior environmental
and public review under a federal court ruling won by PEER and allied
groups last year, but none of the Southeastern refuges have undertaken
the required reviews.
[…] In the Southeast Region, headed by Sam Hamilton, named by the
Obama administration as its intended nominee to lead the entire FWS,
records show:
One in three (41 of 128 total refuges) are growing GM crops;
No refuge has been denied permission for GM crops; and
The basis for Hamilton’s Regional Office approval typically cites farmers’ profitability or their preference for GM crops.
From:
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release (www.peer.org)
June 25, 2009, Carol Goldberg
Federal Judge Says No to Modified Crops on US Refuge Land
by Bill Lambrecht
WASHINGTON – In a court case with potential impact in Missouri and across the country, a federal judge in Delaware ruled today that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife should not have permitted farming with genetically modified crops on a national wildlife refuge.
A federal judge in Delaware ruled today that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife should not have permitted farming with genetically modified crops on a national wildlife refuge.(AFP/Illustration/Jean-Pierre Muller)
U.S. District Judge Gregory Sleet wrote that the Fish and Wildlife agency erred by failing to conduct environmental studies to determine whether farming with genetically modified crops at the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware was compatible with conservation and habitat preservation.
From: commondreams.org
Monsanto, is a company known to manipulate statistics to its own advantage, and cycle its employees into critical governmental regulatory roles, (there’s at least a handful of them hanging out at the White House lately) building a major part of its income on graft. Numerous top level government officials have also been high ups in Monsanto and other AG Chem corporations, in some cases, moving back and forth between the government office and the chemical company seat.
No chemical compound is ever totally pure. In the case of Agent Orange, one of Monsanto’s income producing giants during the Vietnam War, dioxin was a critical impurity whose effects are still being felt.
There are now fourth generation Agent Orange/Dioxin victims being born with severe physical deformities and mental diseases in Vietnam and Cambodia. Reliable testimony and clear documentation shows that the chemical giants producing the stuff knew that it was profoundly poisonous to humans. Do you think we should trust these guys with the world’s food supply and our health? Remember there is no government oversight of GMO insanity, and if there were, the ‘oversight’ [undersight] would be provided by the same overlords that instructed the U.S. solders to mix-up and apply the herbicide casually, with no protective gear and no exposure limitations.
Who thinks it’s a good idea to knowingly induce people to eat substances that are;
The most serious potential food security threat ever faced. (Food security equals overall security, national security).
More heavily laden with systemic and surface poisonous chemical contamination.
Proven to cause life threatening allergic reactions.
Likely to lead to organ failure and as yet indefinable imbalances in the living systems of consumers.
Through unavoidable cross-contamination make organic produce a thing of the past, and in fact make it virtually impossible to grow any plant (Or animal, Human included) that is not genetically deranged.
Have been shown very likely to be able to cause the “Manufacture” of pesticides inside the gut of the consumer.
Lead to dramatic increases in the release of poisonous agricultural chemicals into the environment.
Produce genetic cross mutation of all seed baring plants to the extent that virtually all foods become effectively sterile and cease to reproduce…
Allow for the complete extinction of all common food plants via an ultimately unavoidable single epidemic blight able to kill all plants of all species due to their common contamination with an “Introduced” runaway gene.
The comforting news: Monsanto suffered several significant stock price devaluations last year (2009) and already in 2010. One promising day last summer, Big M’s stock fell more than 12 points, a 52 week low.
The less comforting news: Monsanto is now heard lying (advertising) on NPR.
We need to address this insanity from home, in everyone’s home town, with every visit to the grocery store and natural food store/health food store, and every time we dine out.
I hope we can do it, we have realized amazing results in the past by demanding something better.
I have been trying for several years to generate interest in making the local retailers feel the hurt of selling GMO junk, but haven’t worked hard enough and don’t have nearly enough solid allies.
In my mind, the biggest offenders are the natural food stores, because they (more so than the likes of Safeway and Subway) should know better, AND DO BETTER.
There can be no excuses. It’s really a runaway train and we must stop it. It’s is up to us, the regulators don’t regulate (The GMOers are self regulated / Unregulated). Face it; the government will not help unless and until we force it. There has been an active anti-GMO movement for years, but Monsanto is still running the show. We need to band together, and we need to make our demands felt at the retailers and endeavor to buy nothing that Monsanto produces.
Think about it, if we all refuse to purchase any product with any amount of GMO lased ingredients at any food outlet, especially the natural food store, things will change.
It is dangerous and irresponsible to bring such crap into the house or into the body anyway.
Currently, Prescott’s biggest natural food store is heavily stocked with tons of junk, some shamefully junky junk. Most of the shelf space excluding the produce is actually lined with JUNK.
It has come a long way from the days of ‘real health food stores’ like the original Super Carrot where we met Margaret. Patty and Karen maintained high quality standards. Anything GMOed cannot fit into a policy of High Quality Standards!
The junk of concern for the sake of this discussion is the stuff containing:
Canola, usually as canola (or rape seed) oil, sometimes canola meal in pet food.
Conventional soy and its derivatives, (oil, TVP, protein and most lecithins).
And the pervasive conventional corn creations HFCS, (High fructose corn syrup) corn oil, corn syrup, crystalline fructose, ascorbic acid, (vitamin C) citric acid, lactic acid, gluten, dextrose, and glucose and modified food starch
Cottonseed is also usually GMOed; it will show up as oil or meal.
Remember the five biggies CORN, CANOLA, SOY, COTTONSEED and MILK. If any of these are in a product and NOT organic, you can bet they are GMOed.
Additionally most Hawaiian papaya.
Some tobacco, (crossing the food-line, but people do ‘take it in’ and it still infects the environment, so it bares mentioning).
And more recently sugar beets. Already, zillions of acres in the U.S. have been planted with the GMOed tubers, although some legal backlash may prevent the beet thing from totally kicking in, but if GMOed sugar beets do become the new ‘bad joke’ in agribusiness just imagine, then almost all of the sweetener used in almost all of the stuff that Americans eat will automatically be GMOed by way of GMO-corn-fructose and GMO-beet sugar. That’ll be the scariest thing on Halloween!
This is only my casual rant and so not intended to be a complete list of the GMO invasion into the food market, but covers almost all of the GMO food insanity legally allowed since the last time I checked. GMOs also are hidden in some pharmaceutical meds and supplements. O.K., I’ll mention one more:
Aspartame, the artificial sweetener (known as NutraSweet and Equal). I know that’s certainly NOT food, and it kills people in ways that have nothing to do with the fact that it is derived from GMOed microbes, but some folks do eat it so I thought I’d throw it in. If you have any, please throw it out.
If you haven’t eliminated GMOs yet, I can tell you that it’s NOT a difficult undertaking really, just read the labels and don’t buy the Franken-food. You won’t miss anything [worth missing]. You’ll be doing yourself a personal favor (and I suggest you deserve the very best), very importantly, your message will be heard by the retailer. Without even speaking, you will be shouting “I don’t buy GMOs, I won’t buy GMOs!
That’s what it will take, that’s the least it will take to give our grandchildren any chance of living the good life. And I suggest that they all deserve no less. There are no excuses.
Think about this: A company can produce a packaged food (or junk food) product, and if ‘salt’ is an ingredient, it must be listed on the label… salt, which is in your tears, your sweat and in the water which covers most of the Earth… its presence in a food must be disclosed on the package, BUT the Twinkies, or any number of food items (up to 85% in grocery stores and easily 20-30% in most local and chain natural food stores) could be loaded with GMOized crap and the package will make no such indication. That’s the law. It is actually illegal (only in the U.S. I think) for the manufacturer of some foods (which are free of GMOs) to indicate the GMO-free status on the package.
According to many estimates, GM ingredients ‘infect’ more than 70% of processed foods sold in the US. Yes, lots of them are found on the shelves of natural food stores.
The production of GMO-contaminated foods is by no means confined to large conventional food manufacturing corporations. Disturbingly, the practice is common among many of the self proclaimed ‘health conscious’ producers as well. Actually, many of the familiar ‘health-food’ brands are now owned by the same mega-corps that have given us cigarettes, Fruit loops, Trichinella-ridden greasy sausage and pesticides anyway.
This is a shameful and sneaky scheme by the producers and a careless and backwards disservice by the pseudo-health food stores who comply with the apathy and ignorance (on the subject of GMOs) of the general public. It’s indicative of how pervasive these menacing substances have become, and says nothing good, nothing even excusable about the policies and management of the retailers. The realization of this sad situation should, at the very least, be the wake-up call that gets us all off of our bottoms, to take aim and deliver the overdue silver lance to the heart of Monsanto and their wanna’bees.
The call, to which we have so far been nearly deaf, actually comes from the future where our children and grandchildren are trying desperately to experience life as happy and healthy on a formerly perfect planet which has become, not the playground, but the ‘toilet’ of runaway corporate insanity and unprecedented government UNDERsight.
What could we tell future generations if we let Monsanto become World Monarch?
Make no mistake, the Monsantos are effectively designing a world in which our children will pay for every drop of rain that falls, where plant diversity doesn’t exist, and where it is against the law to grow any plant (Food, flower or shade tree) unless the seed is purchased from them, and if the plant yields a viable seed (which they will be engineered NOT to) the seed must be destroyed or submitted to the company as it will be the property of the corporation.
Now, even though the move for dominance of the world’s food, medicine and water supply has advanced to a threatening stage, while the people have been busy lining up at the McDonald’s drive-thru for hormone-enhanced milkshakes, there is a counter-movement underway, it is growing in vitality, and ready to welcome every thinking person to do more… to get the job done.
I’m not suggesting that the movement to make food ‘free’ again is the only necessary remedy to heal a shaky future, but like some of the other biggies, if we don’t get this one right, ultimately the others won’t matter.
We’re not going to let that happen!
One aspect of the GMO fight that may be comforting is that: ‘We The People’ can do what needs doing completely peacefully.
Very shortly after you and I both (Enough of us) completely stop buying anything GMOed, the retailers will stop ordering and stocking it, then the Monsantos will have to sell us something else.
Ya’ know, if (when) the gene-pervert-ers would turn their formidable talents, capital resources, ingenuity and political influence towards sane, humanitarian and productive developments we could really go places. Good, safe, happy, healthy places. I think they need a little push.
Already there are internal GMO labeling programs in some nat. food stores and co-ops, (actually there have been for years) and there are a growing number of virtual GMO free communities, disappointingly our town is not one of them. Of the half-dozen or so natural/health food outlets and all the standard GROSS-ery stores in our little town, only ONE is listed with the ‘Non-GMO Project’. That is an embarrassment to our community, but the sensibilities of the management of ONE ROOT TEA & HERBOTHECARY, the local nat-foods co-op can be our starting place. Wherever you may be, it can be your gift to the future, your gift to the farmers, your little effort towards the right of all people to access REAL food and to know what they are purchasing and to grow food from saved seed (concepts to which the Monsantos are absolutely 110% opposed) when you boycott GMOs, when you support GMO free suppliers, when you enlighten your friends, when you ask retailers and manufacturers to ‘drop the GMOs’ and when you share your concerns with your representatives.
~ The GMO-free Monterey County initiative states:
“Together, we, the citizens of Monterey County seek to pass a county ordinance that would make it unlawful to propagate, cultivate, raise or grow any genetically-engineered crop.” http://www.gmofreemontereycounty.org/ GMO-free Monterey County is a campaign of Green Agriculture.org
~ The Non-GMO Project
The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, farmers, seed companies and consumers.
Their statement: “Our shared belief is that everyone deserves an informed choice about whether or not to consume genetically modified products, and our common mission is to ensure the sustained availability of non-GMO choices.” They go on to say” We are committed to practical solutions and offer North America’s first consensus-based Standard, third-party Product Verification Program, and uniform Seal for products made following best practices of GMO avoidance.”
My [Billy] point is that as long as GMOs are being planted anywhere, (especially outdoors) there is no way to ensure the sustained availability of non-GMO choices. Just consider what happened to Percy Schmeiser
Some of the examples above are about labeling (and testing/verifying) programs, which I feel is too little, although reasonable people remind me that comprehensive labeling [of GMO polluted foods] is a necessary first step (A first step towards eradication, I hope they mean). I understand that awareness needs to grow and choice needs to be supported and that we won’t have effective opportunities for choice without labeling, yet I can’t help but imagine making all GMO food disappear (through law and REASON), then putting the Monsanto board members on the next rocket to Mars.
It is doubtful that any of us are naive enough to think that the scientific field of genetic modification is ever going to disappear as long as humans are milling around on Earth, but the ‘folly’ of GM-ing needs to become a brief blip in recent history as soon as possible. Absolutely every effort made in the sub-fields of GM food and GM animals can best be qualified not as science but ‘junk-science’ (Folly). The chemical giants really rushed into, and the people have been pushed into a grand experiment which may yield something helpful in the future if the present applications of the infant technology don’t backfire too loudly first. Of course, the world will never be the same because the Monsantos have already abused and invaded our air, water, soil and bodies well beyond what any retribution could balance.
` A few examples of GM resistance around the world:
Europe
All of Europe enjoys mandatory labeling of GMO foods. GMO FREE IRELAND
Japan
Long ago Japan told the Monsantos “Not here, thank you, The American people are Guiney pigs; we won’t do that to our citizens. We will watch what happens to them for ten years [or longer] before considering it”.
Africa
The common folks as well as the leaders throughout Africa are smart enough to stay away from GMOs; meanwhile the US is guilty of putting intense pressure on United Nations, the European Union and individual countries to support the export of GM food aid to six African countries facing severe hunger.
Offers of starvation relief and medicine appropriations, loans or discounts have repeatedly been wrapped together with the insistence of full acceptance of GMO grain and beans and an opening of those nations to sully their soils with poison GMOs and the extra heavy doses of pesticide that are part of the process of growing them.
Yah, that’s smart, sell starving, super poor people GMO seeds, then they can grow some food, apply 15 times more pesticide then used on conventional varieties, next the poor, starving people will have to purchase the poison from Monsanto, and then purchase more seed from the same crooks again next year because the plants won’t produce viable seeds, and if any do [produce viable seeds], the farmers are contractually forbidden from planting, selling or giving away the seed anyway. Oh, if the farmers can’t afford the [15 times more] necessary chemicals, or next year’s seed, maybe the ‘Great White Father Monsanto’ will give them a loan… That is exactly the scenario that has driven tens-of-thousands of farmers in India to suicide. What a sinful irony it is that most often the desperate Indian farmers have used Monsanto pesticide to kill themselves. Should anybody be doing business with those bastards? Ridiculous question!
We can either get on board, and work to make our food free [GMO-Free] again or sit down and write a letter of apology to the grandkids for the apathy that handed ‘LIFE’ over to Monsanto.
You don’t think that leakage (drift) of insidious ‘modified’ genes has infected the general crops around the world?
Here’s a clip or two:
Europe
Earlier last fall, the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed confirmed the presence of GMO flax, known as “Triffid,” in flax imported from Canada. This comes as a surprise, as Triffid has been illegal in Canada since 2001, when flax farmers and the Canadian Grain Commission successfully lobbied to have it banned from the market. Although Triffid was never sold commercially in Canada, it has now shown up in 34 countries. It is still unclear how this contamination occurred, and many Canadian flax farmers worry that their livelihoods are at stake. (Read more here.)
Mexico and Middle America
Corn was first planted in Mexico some 9,000 years ago and the country is now home to more than 10,000 varieties. Mexico is considered the ‘cradle of corn’. Mexican maize is a phenomenal example of genetic diversity; it took countless ‘people-of-the-land’ untold effort, over thousands of years to develop what is now universally invaluable. All of that dedication will be rewarded with nothing more than a few lines in history books if Monsanto (and the U.S. government) has its way… If you and don’t stop the insanity.
Despite a decade + long ban on growing artificially modified corn in Mexico, some of the altered strains have shown up among the native crops. A study by a three-nation commission under the auspices of the NAFTA commission is urging greater caution. Greater caution, what a joke.
True, genetically modified corn has been sold to Mexico (grown in the U.S.) since the 1994 passage of NAFTA, (That’s politico-speak for U.S. coercion) Mexican government regulations limited its use to animal (non-human) feed. But, as some scientists predicted, (and we all might have expected) it now pops up in some of the most isolated cornfields in Mexico, growing alongside the native strains. Goodbye diversity, Hello Great Father Monsanto. Pretty much every lie that Big M has told about feeding the starving world, improving nutritional profiles, increasing productivity, lowering investments for farmers or costs for consumers, or the safety of the technology, has long since been exposed as genetically modified BS.
Please consider helping the situation by boycotting (as much as possible) all GMO contaminated items, asking retailers to ‘label and separate’ and to work towards “getting back to REAL food”, consider boycotting stores that don’t ‘get it’, if you have a better choice… Be kind, and offer clear explanations, be prepared with referrals to more resources and info. Please bring the issue to the attention of all your friends.
More detail:
GMO Trilogy – Unnatural Selection (part 1 of 5)
This explosive exposé reveals what the biotech industry doesn’t want you to know – how industry manipulation and political collusion, not sound science, allow dangerous genetically engineered food into your daily diet. Company research is rigged, alarming evidence of health dangers is covered up, and intense political pressure applied. Chapters read like adventure stories and are hard to put down: * Scientists were offered bribes or threatened. Evidence was stolen. Data was omitted or distorted. * Government employees who complained were harassed, stripped of responsibilities, or fired. * Laboratory rats fed a GM crop developed stomach lesions and seven of the forty died within two weeks. The crop was approved without further tests. * The only independent in-depth feeding study ever conducted showed evidence of alarming health dangers. When the scientist tried to alert the public, he lost his job and was silenced with threats of a lawsuit. Read the actual internal memos by FDA scientists, warning o…all »
Hormones in Milk, and Rat’s Milk for People
`
AUTHORS:
Carson, Rachel
Cummings, Claire Hope
Engdahl, F. William
Kimbrell, Andrew
Patel, Raj
Pollan, Michael
Rifkin, Jeremy
Roseboro, Ken
Smith, Jeffrey
Winters, Craig
FILMS:
The Future of Food
The World According to Monsanto
King Corn
If you are a restaurant, a school lunch program, or an organization who holds events where food is available, and you want to of transition away from genetically modified (GM) ingredients, click here… Sourcing Non-GMO Supplies
Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto
From DEMOCRACY September 17, 2010
Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto: The Story of a Canadian Farmer’s Fight to Defend the Rights of Farmers and the Future of Seeds
Gathered here in Bonn this week are some eighty Right Livelihood Award laureates, including the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who has battled the biotech giant Monsanto for years. When Monsanto seeds blew into Schmeiser’s property, Monsanto accused him of illegally planting their crops and took him to court. Ultimately his case landed in the Canadian Supreme Court. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1997 for fighting to defend the rights of farmers and the future of seeds.
LISTEN
WATCH
Listen to, or view the video of the quite hero, Percy Schmeiser telling his story to Amy
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Bonn, Germany, where the thirtieth anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards is being held. The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 and has become widely known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. Gathered here in Bonn this week are some eighty Right Livelihood Award laureates, including the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who has battled the biotech company Monsanto for years. In 1997, Percy and his wife Louise won the Right Livelihood Award for their courage in defending biodiversity and farmers’ rights. I spoke with Percy Schmeiser yesterday in Bonn, but first I want to turn to Bertram Verhaag’s documentary Percy Schmeiser: David versus Monsanto.
NARRATOR: The pesticide Roundup produced by the multinational concern Monsanto is the most widely sold spray in the world. Monsanto made its canola resistant to Roundup. This means Roundup kills every plant without exception. Only Monsanto’s genetically modified canola remains alive.
PERCY SCHMEISER: It was introduced without really much testing being done. And I think, even at that time, when it was introduced in the middle of the ’90s, that even the governments were taken in by what these corporations told what it would do, like increase yields and less chemicals and more nutritious. And I think the governments even believed the corporation.
NARRATOR: In 1996, the chemical giant Monsanto introduced its brand of canola into Canada, a brand resistant to the pesticide Roundup. In Schmeiser’s region, three farmers agreed to plant Monsanto’s new GMO canola. Due to a heavy storm during the harvest, freshly cut GMO canola drifted into Percy Schmeiser’s fields. His work of fifty years of breeding was destroyed, because his harvest was contaminated by Monsanto’s seed.
PERCY SCHMEISER: It came like a—like a time bomb, like a shock to me, that my seed was ruined through cross-pollination or direct seed drift by a substance, by a seed I didn’t want in my land. And so, it was very disgusting and hard to take that I had lost something that I worked fifty years on.
NARRATOR: Contamination and destruction of his own breed was irrevocably damaging to Percy Schmeiser. But on top of that, Monsanto turned him, the victim, into a culprit.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the documentary Percy Schmeiser: David versus Monsanto.
Well, I met Percy Schmeiser yesterday here in Bonn and asked him to talk about this epic struggle he has with the biotech giant Monsanto. It’s one of the largest biotech companies in the world.
PERCY SCHMEISER: It started in 1998, when Monsanto laid what they call a patent infringement lawsuit against my wife and myself, and they charged us that we were growing their genetic altered, or GMO, canola, as we call it in Canada. And that was the beginning of it. And as GMOs were introduced in North America in 1996, so this was two years after the introduction.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what a GMO is.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Genetic modified organisms. And what that really means is that they took a gene from another life form, put it into canola, which made it resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what canola is.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Canola is—well, here—in most parts of the world, we call it rapeseed. But canola is an oil-based crop, and primarily it is used for making cooking oil. And the meal from it, after it’s pressed, is good animal feed, both for cattle and for pigs.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain how it ended up on your property.
PERCY SCHMEISER: My neighbor had grown it in 1997, and the following year it had true cross-pollination. But at that time, we believe it was primarily the contamination came from seeds blown in the wind, transportation by the farmer to the market, to his field, and from his field to his granaries.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you didn’t buy it and plant it, how could Monsanto sue you for using it?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, they said that it does not matter how it gets into any farmer’s field, and they specified just what I said before—cross-pollination, seed movement and so on. And because they have a patent on one gene that makes that plant resistant—canola plant resistant to a chemical, then they—that they own the ownership. So it doesn’t matter how it gets to your field, for patent law. They can take the whole total farmer’s crop from him or make him destroy it. And in our case, my wife and I were seed developers in canola, which we had been doing for over fifty years, research in the development of disease control and so on. Even we lost all that research when the court ordered, through patent law, they own it.
AMY GOODMAN: That Monsanto owned it.
PERCY SCHMEISER: That Monsanto owns it.
AMY GOODMAN: And how much did they fine you?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, initially they wanted so-much-an-acre fine, but it ended up that they laid another lawsuit of $1 million against my wife and myself. And that also, we had to fight. And besides that, there was another lawsuit in the seven years before it went to the Supreme Court, where they tried to seize all our farmland. They tried to seize our whole—our farm equipment, so they could stop us, because we were using mortgages on our farmland to pay for our legal bills.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, then explain what happened. You appealed this right to the Canadian Supreme Court?
PERCY SCHMEISER: It went all the way. It went through the lower courts and the court of appeal and so on, and then it went all the way to Supreme Court of Canada. But there were other issues at the Supreme Court we could bring in that we could not bring in at the lower courts—first of all, farmers’ rights, farmers’ rights to use your own seed from year to year to develop them, and then also the whole issue that we said, in regards to patents, there should be no patents allowed on higher life forms—basically, anything that comes from a seed. So that was one of the main things. We said to the Supreme Court that life is sacred. No one, no individual, no corporation, should ever, ever control it.
You have to remember that in Canada, and I believe also in the United States, that there’s nothing in our patent acts of 1867 and 1869 that talks about genes, because it was unknown at that time. So even at the present time, all these decisions are only decisions of the court and of a judge. And I should also mention that in the Supreme Court, it was a split decision, five-four, where they ruled that Monsanto’s patent on the gene is valid.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they ruled against you or for you?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Against me.
AMY GOODMAN: At the Supreme Court.
PERCY SCHMEISER: The Supreme Court of Canada. But they also said that the whole issue of the patents on life has to go back to the Parliament of Canada to bring in laws and regulations in regards to the patents of seeds, plants, farmers’ rights and so on. And that’s where it stands now.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what happened to you?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, actually, what was the real—it was actually a real victory for us, because the Supreme Court ruled we would not have to pay Monsanto no money. And the issue of the million-dollar lawsuit, the issue of trying to seize our land and our farm equipment, our house and so on, and the whole issue that they could not have punitive damage against us and so on, was a major victory.
But we thought it was over at that time. But little did we know, about two years later, in 2005, we noticed that one of our fields, or we felt one of our fields were contaminated again with Monsanto’s GMOs. And we notified Monsanto, and we did testing ourselves, and we were quite sure it was Monsanto’s GMO canola in our field again. We notified Monsanto, and they said they would come out and check it, which we were surprised. And indeed, two days later, they came. Several days later, they notified us, “Yes, it is our GMO, Monsanto’s rapeseed, in your field again.” And they asked us what we wanted to have done with the contamination. We said to Monsanto, because we were starting to do research on mustard on the field, we wanted every rapeseed—GMO rapeseed plant of Monsanto’s pulled out by hand on this fifty-acre field. And they agreed to do that.
But here’s the unusual part of it, and they do this to farmers across North America. They said, first of all, we’d have to sign a release form. And in this release form, it said my wife, myself or any member of our family could never, ever take Monsanto to court again for the rest of our lives, no matter how much they contaminate us in the future on our land or on this farm. And we said there’s no way we will ever, ever do that.
And the other thing in the release form, they said that our freedom of speech would be taken away. In other words, we could never, ever talk what the terms of settlement were. I couldn’t even talk to you here this morning. So we said to them there’s no way we’re going to give up our freedom of speech. There’s too many people in our countries, United States and Canada, have given our lives for the freedom of speech, and we’ll never give it away to a corporation.
Monsanto said, “If you don’t sign the release, then we will not remove the offending plants,” the GMO Monsanto plants. And we said to Monsanto, we, with the help of our neighbors, will remove the contamination. And then my wife received a very nasty email or a fax from Monsanto that said, “We wish to remind you that those GMO plants on your field, Monsanto’s GMO plants on your field, are not your property. They are Monsanto’s property through patent law. And you cannot do with them what you want.” And we notified Monsanto, “We will do what we want with those plants. They’re on our land, our property. And we paid our taxes, and we own the land.” And we did remove the plants.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean, they were threatening you now not to remove the plants.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Not to remove them, because it was their property, and we could not do with them what we want, because they have a patent on it. They own it, even though it’s on our land. So, we removed the plants. And with the help of our neighbors—and this was very unusual. We paid our neighbors 640 Canadian dollars, and then we sent Monsanto the bill. And Monsanto refused to pay it. And eventually, after another year of letters going back and forth, Monsanto said they would pay the $640, plus a $20 cost, if we would sign that document. We refused to do that.
So, I’ll never forget March 19th, 2007—or ’08, and it went—at the beginning of the court, the Monsanto’s lawyer got up and said, “Your Honor, we will pay”—well, there was mediation and everything before that—”We will pay the $640 and the $20 cost.” The whole issue was never the $640. The whole issue now became liability. If Monsanto owns the patent on a gene, and you cannot control it when you put it in the environment as a seed—in a seed or in a plant, then they should be responsible for the damages they do to organic farmers and conventional farmers. So that was a major victory, because now it has set a precedent that if a farmer is contaminated, he can seek relief in the courts that the damage—that the contamination damage is paid for or taken care of. So it’s worldwide. So we were very happy, after ten years of legal battle, that we finally had a corporation—first of all, like a corporation of Monsanto, to have a billion-dollar corporation plus in court on a $640 bill.
AMY GOODMAN: Canadian farmer and Right Livelihood laureate Percy Schmeiser describing his struggle with Monsanto. We’ll come back to his story in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We are here in Bonn for the thirtieth anniversary of the Right Livelihood Award winners. About eighty of them have gathered here. Before we go back to our interview with the Right Livelihood Award-winner Percy Schmeiser, I want to turn back to an excerpt from the documentary Percy Schmeiser: David versus Monsanto, about Percy and his wife Louise, how they were repeatedly threatened after they took on Monsanto.
LOUISE SCHMEISER: It was scary at times. You just never know.
PERCY SCHMEISER: And the phone calls, you know, where there would be somebody on the line saying, “You better watch it. They’re going to get you.” So it was pretty scary, and I was very concerned, when I was gone, that something would happen to her.
LOUISE SCHMEISER: And when they would watch us, especially in our own house here—they watched days on end every move we made, in our house and for our office, what we use for the land, I felt like I was a prisoner in my own home.
PERCY SCHMEISER: They did everything to bring us down financially and mentally. And that’s what they’re doing, is to mentally and financially break people. They are totally ruthless. They have no ethics. They have no morals. It’s the bottom line.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the documentary Percy Schmeiser: David versus Monsanto. Here in Bonn, I asked Percy Schmeiser yesterday to talk about how things stand now between, well, he, Louise and Monsanto.
PERCY SCHMEISER: I hope my battle with Monsanto is over. But I realize that as long as I bring awareness around the world about Monsanto’s patent—not only Monsanto’s patent, but Bayer, Syngenta, DuPont—what their patents do for the control of the future of our seed and our food supply, and that’s what it was all about. GMOs were never meant to feed a hungry or starving world. They were meant to get control of farmers’ seed supply. That gives them the control of the world food supply. And so, that’s where we stand at now, to bring that awareness around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Percy Schmeiser, we’re sitting here in Bonn, Germany, and you’re traveling through Germany. In fact, there is a law here named for you, the Schmeiser law.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Mm-hmm.
AMY GOODMAN: People here are extremely interested in your case. What is the Schmeiser law?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Basically is that, here in Germany, that if a farmer is contaminated with Monsanto’s GMOs, Monsanto cannot come after that farmer to seize their crop, whatever it may be, or take them to court, if they are contaminated.
AMY GOODMAN: And how much of an issue is that here in Germany?
PERCY SCHMEISER: That’s a big issue, because that has become, I think also in North America, a big issue, the liability issue. And to give you an extent of that is that in North America, a farmer cannot—if he grows GMOs, he cannot get genetic insurance. So if—but I should go back, that at the last lawsuit with Monsanto in the courts, initially, before the final one, Monsanto said, first of all, the farmer is responsible for the contamination, because he knows if he grows GMOs, he will contaminate his neighbor by whatever means. When that did not go over in the courts, then Monsanto said the government is responsible for the contamination, because they gave us regulatory approval to sell it. And that did not go over. And so, in the end, Monsanto paid for the contamination cleanup.
So, that has become a very big issue around the world, that if you have a patent on a gene, doesn’t give you the right to release it into the environment, where it destroys biodiversity, where it destroys organic farmers and so on. And I think it has become a bigger issue in Europe now, it’s because the organic industry, I believe, is much stronger in European countries than it is in North America, although it’s growing very fast in both our countries, in the United States and Canada.
AMY GOODMAN: Percy Schmeiser, you mentioned that you figured out that probably your property was contaminated, the second time, with GMO, with Monsanto GMO crops. How did you know that?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, what happened was that we were using this fifty-acre piece of land for, as I mentioned, for mustard research. And we did not grow any crop that year. And we had used a herbicide on it, and there were canola plants that did not die. And that field did not have canola in for at least ten years. Where did it come from? And so, we did testing then with—we, from our neighbor, got a little bit of Roundup, Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, and we sprayed it on ten plants, and then those plants were marked. And then, when they did not die after about twelve days, we realized it had to have some sort of—some of Monsanto’s glyphosate in it, because Monsanto said, in the previous court trials, that if anything—any green thing is sprayed with Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup and it does not die, it’s their gene that’s in it. So that’s why we suspected immediately it was Monsanto’s gene, herbicide gene, Roundup gene, in it. And that’s why we asked Monsanto to come, because what they had said, that if a farmer thinks he’s contaminated, he should notify Monsanto. And that’s what we did, on what they had said in the courts before.
AMY GOODMAN: What are the Schmeiser’s principles of food and agriculture?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, first of all, that all humans—number one, all humans have a right to food or to produce it, and that, number two, is that natural systems must be protected so that they can produce healthy food. Humans have a right to safe and nutritious food. And no rules should prevent countries controlling food imports. And everyone has a right to information about how their food is produced. Regions should have the right to regulate their own agriculture. Local production and consumption should be encouraged. So, like we say, local consumption or local produce, then you save the energy and the fuel that it’s required to move it thousands of miles, which happens, although, to a lot of us in North America. And seeds are a common property resource. And that’s where we felt very strongly that no one should have the right to the future of seeds. And then, no forms—no life forms should be patented. And terminator seeds should be globally banned. And we have a strong opinion that terminator seeds should never, never, ever be introduced, because, to us, it’s the—I think the most serious assault on life we’ve ever seen on this planet. When they come out with—want to come out with a gene that terminates the future of the germination of that seed, so that would totally control the world seed supply.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean by a terminator seed.
PERCY SCHMEISER: A terminator gene basically, quite simply, is a gene that’s put into a seed. And when the seed becomes a plant, all seeds from that plant are sterile. And so, it cannot be used the following year for seed. But the danger also of the terminator gene, it can cross-pollinate into indigenous crops, heirloom crops, and render those seeds from those plants also sterile. So it’s a termination of the future of life.
AMY GOODMAN: So it forces farmers to buy seeds every year, rather than to conserve seeds so that they can be used every year.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Exactly. And that’s why we say it’s the greatest assault of life we’ve ever seen on this planet, where you terminate the future of life. Farmers would be forced to buy the seed each year, whether you’re a gardener, a tree planter or a grain producer.
And then the—so, and then, another one, farmers—freedom to exchange seeds should be protected. And one of the reasons for that is that, in the seed industry, we say that one glove does not fit all. My wife and I were developing seeds and plants suitable for our local climatic and soil conditions. But if we probably would have went to Montana or to the next province or 200 miles away, climatic conditions are different, soil conditions are different, and that’s why the farmers should always have that right to develop seeds and plants suitable for their own conditions. And that should never, ever be taken away, because we would use the biodiversity of our seeds and plants. And then, farmers should have the right—the right for the land and to be free of genetic contamination.
AMY GOODMAN: And how far have you gotten with these principles? Do you feel like, in the world, independent farmers are losing ground or gaining? I mean, is Monsanto gaining strength or losing?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, to answer that, I think that on the four crops that were introduced in 1996, which was maize, or corn, soybeans, cotton, especially in Canada, canola, is that it would be very difficult to find a way—and scientists say they don’t know if it ever can be recalled back out of the environment. Have we been able to solve it? I would say yes, because there is more concern, because when they wanted to introduce GMO wheat, GMO rice, GMO alfalfa, there was a big uproar by people in both our countries that no more GMOs should be introduced, because we saw the damage of what the four have done. So that’s why it’s so important. What we do today will affect generations to come in the seed—control of the seed and food supply of this world.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you now travel around the world. I mean, you were the—a member of the Saskatchewan legislature, ’67 to ’71. You were the mayor of your own hometown of Bruno in Saskatchewan. Were you traveling much then? And now, after these lawsuits against Monsanto, how much are you spreading word, like seeds, around the world?
PERCY SCHMEISER: Well, I could be probably traveling full times if I accepted all the invitations. But to give you an example, last year I probably was gone ten months from Saskatchewan, all over every continent, except Antarctica, to bring this information and awareness out. And at our age—we’re in retirement age—we felt that’s the least we can do. And one of the other reasons that we look at it is the—as I mentioned before, the future generation. My wife and I have fifteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. And then we look at what kind of a future are we going to leave for them. And another thing that we’re very concerned about is how much of the funding for our research in our university now comes from corporations? And that really scares me, because we know that if the funding is applied to these universities and the land-grant colleges in the United States, how much control will the companies then have over our universities? So, what kind of a future? My wife and I have six grandchildren in university right now. What kind of future will they have if their academic freedom is controlled? And we don’t want to see that. A scientist should be free to express and release the findings that he develops or finds.
AMY GOODMAN: Has Monsanto dared to take you on again?
PERCY SCHMEISER: They’ve threatened us many times.
AMY GOODMAN: How did they threaten you?
PERCY SCHMEISER: They, with—I’ll give you an example. My wife and I were speaking in the Parliament in Cape Town of South Africa, and coming out of the Assembly, one of Monsanto’s representatives from Johannesburg ran face-to-face into us. And he lost his cool, and he said to my wife and myself…
—and he shook his fist in our face and said, “Nobody stands up to Monsanto. We are going to get both of you, somehow, some day, and destroy you both.”
Phone calls my wife would receive: “You better watch it. We’re going to get you.” They would come into our driveway and watch what my wife would be doing all day. They would use their vehicles and sit on the roads alongside of our farmland, watch us all day long, to try and intimidate us and to put fear into us.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what keeps you going?
PERCY SCHMEISER: I think that we feel that we have to stand up for the rights of farmers around the world. All my life I’ve been in agriculture and worked for agricultural policies and laws. And we feel that a farmer should never, ever lose the rights to his seeds or plants, because if we do, we’re going to be back to a serf system, we’re going to be back to a feudal system, that our forefathers, our grandfathers, left countries in Europe many years ago to get away from. Now, in less than—or 100 years, we’ve come full circle, where the control is not by kings or lords or barons, but now it’s corporations.
AMY GOODMAN: Percy Schmeiser, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
PERCY SCHMEISER: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning in the beautiful sunshine.
While those of us working on the GMO invasion have been focused on the GMO alfalfa fiasco, the moratorium on the planting of GMO-ized sugar beets has been lifted.
The US Department of Agriculture last Friday gave farmers the go-ahead to resume planting Roundup Ready sugarbeets, claiming [GET THIS] “it’s the only way to avoid a nationwide shortage of sugar”.
Now wouldn’t that just be terrible if the U.S., where people with type two diabetes (T2D) are poised to out-number people without the self-imposed condition, and where most of us are “starving from over-eating” nutrient deficient sugary junk were to fall into a nationwide shortage of sugar?
Junk food Personified
In a nation where misguided citizens literally eat their weight in ‘added’ sugar every year, our thoughtful overlords at the USDA are concerned about a sugar shortage. Thanks guys.Read more »
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced early this year (2011) that they will soon be publishing their lengthy (2300+ page) Environmental Impact Statement which will give final approval in favor of Monsanto for the planting of genetically engineered Roundup Ready alfalfa.
Who is going to read the 2,300 pages? Our trusted representatives, I don’t think so. They don’t have to; they already know how the story ends. They put some more of Monsanto’s money in their pockets and steal the future from their kids.
Alfalfa is grown on something like 3-400,000 farms on many millions of acres.
Over twenty billion pounds of alfalfa are harvested each year in the United States and most is cycled through the meat that humans eat.Read more »
With the noble and irrepressible plant, Alfalfa poised to be the next big recipient of Monsanto’s War on Life, It is little enough to recognize the character and contributions of this wonderful gift of the green Earth.
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