Video - The Genetic Conspiracy

" July 22, 2007 — How safe is the so-called "Green Genetic Engineering" really?
Monsanto, the world's largest genetic engineering corporation, insists it is safe. Numerous studies claim genetically modified plants can cause allergies and cancers. However, commercial and political interests are determined to make genetic engineering the norm."

GM crops bring higher pesticide use, not less. No surprise there.

"It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen."
- Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, quoted in a must-read New York Times article by William Neuman and Andrew Pollack, May 4, 2010, "Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds." The article describes how overuse of Monsanto's Roundup on Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO crops has resulted in a new generation of superweeds that must be sprayed with highly toxic pesticides. " - OCA

As reported over at Organic Consumers Association, overuse of Monsanto's roundup, the basic intent of the development of Monsanto GM seeds, has resulted, as predicted by scientists not in the employ of agribusiness, in the development of superweeds requiring excessive doses of herbicides, read the full story here. 

The World According to Monsanto (US NTSC Format)

Monsanto Indian Farmer Suicide

Thanks to Organic Consumers Association for the heads up on this video.

Genetically modified health threat

Not only has genetically modified corn led to increased pesticide use when it was supposed to reduce it, it has led to the destruction of small family farms and the small businesses such as seed cleaners, increasing unemployment and driving people off the land. Now, as many have suspected for years it is becoming apparent that it is really bad for your health, it has been found to cause organ damage in lab animals. Please sign the petition to take it off the market until such time as it has been properly studied by independent scientists rather than the paid corporate hacks who produce corporate psuedo science to dupe our leaders.

Take GM corn off the shelves!

Monsanto and Fox News

A clarification from NPR regarding Monsanto ads

On May 13 2009 I posted about the lamentable situation of Monsanto ads appearing on NPR programs. I have received this clarification from the NPR Ombudsman. I very much appreciate this clarification and am gratified to know that NPR maintains it's independent status.

"NPR is very conscious of our non-commercial mission, and is not accepting money from, nor has been approached by Monsanto. What you heard on air may have been an underwriting credit from American Public Media, which produces Marketplace, and is running corporate underwriting spots from Monsanto. Local station WAMU has also accepted sponsorship money from Monsanto. But neither of these spots are affiliated with NPR.

The relationship between local radio station and NPR is an unusual one, and therefore listeners often assume their local station is NPR-run because it broadcasts public radio staples: Morning Edition and All Things Considered, however NPR does not own any radio stations. If you’d like to read more about this issue on the Ombudsman’s column, you may do so at NPR’s webpage. (http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2009/06/npr_is_not_running_monsanto_sp_1.html)

NPR is an independent, nonprofit organization that carries no on-air advertising. One way NPR funds programming and general operations is through underwriting from corporations and philanthropic support from foundations and individuals. This support provides most of NPR's contributed income.

Thanks,

Alicia Shepard
NPR Ombudsman "

Get Former Monsanto Lobbyist off of the Food safety working group

"Agri-Pulse reported that former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor, who has been serving on President Obama's Department of Agriculture Transition Team, was "the leading candidate to staff the White House [food safety] working group." Michael Taylor, who now promotes himself as a food safety expert, is a lawyer whose accomplishments include shepherding Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through Clinton's FDA as the Deputy Administrator for Policy." - OCA

Go to the Organic Consumers Association to send a message to Secretary Vilsack. Remove Michael Taylor from our nations' Food safety working group.

NPR allows Monsanto propaganda on it's programs

It's distressing to hear that NPR is allowing false and deceptive advertising on it's programs. Of all the corporations I consider to be doing serious harm I can't think of one that is lower on the ethical scale than Monsanto, they are even with Exxon for sleaze factor. Read more in this article by Meredith Niles over at Grist. Here is an excerpt;

"The real problem with the Monsanto ads is that they are not “honest or accurate,” but rather quite simply false. The premise of the ad is more or less that Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds are going to save the world from environmental catastrophe and human hunger. All while the corporation made more than 11 billion dollars in 2008 amidst a world food crisis. The catch phrase, “Produce more, conserve more” even has its own website, which conveniently links directly to Monsanto’s website section on “sustainable agriculture”. But the reality of Monsanto’s seeds and the company’s ethics and commitment to fighting world hunger have nothing to do with producing more or conserving more.

Let’s get a few facts on the table. Eighty-five percent of all GM seeds are engineered for herbicide tolerance. Most of these crops are Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” cotton, corn, soy, and canola seeds. What this tolerance means is that the plant can actually withstand significant amounts of pesticides being sprayed on it—in effect promoting pesticide use. In the past farmers were motivated to spray judiciously since their crops could be adversely affected. Farmers growing GM seeds don’t worry about this, and as a result there has been an increase in pesticide use in the United States since the introduction of GM seeds. The most comprehensive independent research done utilizing USDA data demonstrates that since the introduction of GM crops in the United States, more than 120 million pounds of additional pesticides were used. This seems to be a growing trend as well, as the active ingredient in Roundup Ready crops—glyphosate—s becoming less efficient and creating scores of resistant weeds, resulting in increased use.

In 2008 Monsanto’s total sales for Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides was more than $4 billion—up 59 percent from 2007. Perhaps more importantly, its gross profit from such sales was nearly 2 billion dollars- up 131% from 2007. So, what is Monsanto conserving more of? Certainly not biodiversity, human health, wildlife, pollinators or the soil, which are all adversely affected by pesticide use.

The claims of “producing more” that Monsanto touts in the NPR ads are also completely unfounded. Not a single GM crop has been commercially introduced that is intended to increase yield. Agronomists and plant scientists made far greater advances in yields through conventional breeding methods in the 20th century than they ever have with GM crops. In fact, there have been several studies which show that there are actually yield losses associated with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans. What biotech companies have been effective at doing is crafting media messages that persuade the average person to believe that their crops increase yield and that without GM crops we simply couldn’t feed the world.

In fact, GM crops account for less than 3% of total agricultural acreage globally. Five countries in North and South America account for more than 90% of total global acreage, with the United States, Argentina and Brazil making up 80% of total global GM crop acreage. In Africa, only two countries-South Africa and Burkina Faso-allow the commercial planting of GM crops, which are minimally grown. Less than 3% of the cropland in India and China is planted with GM crops, and in India most of that is cotton- not food. This leads me to my next point- four cash crops- soy, maize, cotton and canola make up almost 100% of GM crops planted worldwide. Of these commodity crops, most are used to make biofuels, processed foods, animal feed, and vegetable oils-they are not fed directly to people in their whole form. The bottom line? GM crops are not feeding the world, and they are not enabling us to produce more."

Scientist Warning of Health Hazards of Monsanto's Herbicide Receives Threats

Apparently we are not to be allowed to know about the dangers of using Roundup
As reported by Organic Consumers Association
"There are reports coming out of Argentina of attempts to intimidate the lead researcher of the study showing that Roundup - the glyphosate herbicide developed by Monsanto, could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses. ... Dr. Carrasco has warned that the doses of herbicide used in his study "were much lower than the levels used in the fumigations," and so the situation "is much more serious" that the study suggests because "glyphosate does not degrade". ...

According to an article in the Argentine press, after news about the study broke, Dr. Carrasco was the victim of an act of intimidation, when four men arrived at his laboratory in the Faculty of Medicine and acted extremely aggressively.

Two of the men were said to be members of an agrochemical industry body but refused to give their names. The other two claimed to be a lawyer and notary. They apparently interrogated Dr. Carrasco and demanded to see details of the experiments. They left a card Basílico, Andrada & Santurio, attorneys on behalf of Felipe Alejandro Noël.

Dr. Carrasco also reports being subjected to offensive phone calls and there have been disparaging references to his research in newspapers with links to agribusiness. Dr. Carrasco however is resisting the intimidation, saying, "If I know something, I will not shut my mouth."

read more at OCA

You think I'm against GMO's.....

Thousands of farmers in India have commited suicide after being ruined by switching to GM crops. Farmers in Poland are hunger striking to point out government duplicity with Monsanto.
Read more at Organic Consumers Association.
Here's and excerpt;

"Edyta Jaroszewska, 42 year old organic farmer and the chairperson of the Organic Farmers Association, started hunger strike against GMO cultivation in front of Ministry of Agriculture, Warsaw, Poland two days ago.

Two days ago Danuta Pilarska, another organic farmer and chairperson of The Organic Farmer's Union, joined her. Yesterday, both women, together with other members of the Coalition for a GMO Free Poland, joined a meeting of the Polish government's Agricultural Committee in the Senate in Warsaw. The committee was discussing the future of GMO in Poland.

After a few hours of debate Edyta concluded "There's no political will within the Polish government to stop corporations from illegal planting of the GM maize variety MON 810 - and to ensure that Poland is kept GMO free. This opens the possibility of the widespread planting of MON 810 during this year. So we don't have another choice other than to stay here and fight!"

BT Cotton kills the soil

Recent research by Navdanya, the research organization set up by world renowned scientist Vandana Shiva, has shown that BT Cotton, Mon 810 produced by Monsanto, destroys the ecology of the soil by killing vital microorganisms necessary for the transfer of nutrients from the soil to the plant. Read more at the Navdanya site:


Bt Cotton: weaving a web of infertility

here is an excerpt;
"Navdanya's study was conducted in Bt cotton growing areas of Vidharbha, comparing the microbial biomass in the soil of Bt cotton fields with that of fields that grew other crops or other types of cotton. The survey found statistically significant drops in 2 microbes and 3 beneficial enzymes. These results are significant as it provides scientific evidence that Bt Cotton is making the soil infertile by decreasing microbial activity, and thus essentially killing the very soil that the crop is grown in. Additionally this proves that industrial agriculture creates a relentless cycle of despair as industrial agricultural products deteriorate soil fertility that then necessitates intensified fertilizer and agricultural application, which ultimately results in increased farmer's costs and soaring debts. It is interesting to note that the study was conducted in a region which has shown an alarmingly high rate of farmer suicides, a shocking 20,000 in the past 5 years. Finally, the fact that Bt cotton crops decreases microbial activity in the soil portends a future of sterile soil that may result in massive desertification and loss of arable land in the future in a time where food security is evermore essential."

image Source: The Hindu, Nov 13th, 2003

The Crimes of Monsanto

Monsanto contaminates our food supply with experimental psuedo food, contaminated poor neighborhoods of Anniston Alabama for 40 years with PCB's, and when they lose control of their frankencrops, contaminating and destroying years of sustainable agricultural practice they have the effrontery to sue those contaminated farmers whose livelihoods they've ruined. Join in the campaign to put a stop to the worst of industrial agricultural practices. Boycott GM Foods! Read more at the Organic Consumers Association.

an excerpt,

"Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn't matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, "I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract.

If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots - destroy what they have worked on for 40 years - I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away."

Who Owns Nature?

Greed knows no bounds. In the rush to commodify life, fewer and fewer corporations have gained control over more and more of our common heritage as living organisms on this planet. The ETC Group has released a report which you can download cataloging the extent of the situation. Or you can read a summary over at Organic Consumers Association.


"ETC Group's report highlights similarities between the current financial and food crises. "Corporate-controlled food systems, suffering from decades of deregulation, have resulted in a cornucopia of calamities making us sicker, fatter and more vulnerable," says ETC's Research Director Hope Shand. Ongoing food contamination scandals, the global obesity burden and ocean "dead zones" caused by fertilizer pollution are among the food chain disasters cited in Who Owns Nature? "Unhealthy and hazardous food products are constant reminders of a corporate food chain broken to bits," adds Shand.

Governments are working hand-in-hand with corporations to deny the root causes of the crises and sidestep structural reforms. "Despite the implications for democracy and human rights, no international body exists to monitor global corporate activity and no UN body has the capacity to monitor and evaluate emerging technologies," says ETC Group's Kathy Jo Wetter. "The ongoing food emergency and imploding global economy testify to the need for monitoring and oversight of corporations, as well as social control of powerful new technologies."

What to do? Buy local and non corporate, buy organic, or even better don't buy at all, grow your own, avoid F1 hybridized seed, seed swap, grow heritage varieties, lobby your government representatives to limit corporate power and excess.

Thanks to Diary of a Bad Housewife for the graphic.

Monsanto and Fertility

Many suspect that GM foods are not only dangerous for the ecosystems they infiltrate but are also bad for human health. Since the companies that produce these poisons are not required to adequately prove the safety of their products it is left to independent groups to do the research. Here is information about a study linking a Monsanto product with infertility. It's over at the Organic Consumers Association.