Archive for the ‘GMO’s’ Category

GMO’s in the news

Genetically modified food introduces host of dangers

Sen. Richard Lugar’s (R-Ind.)  bill touting genetically modified (GM)  foods is emblematic of well-meaning leaders who have been duped by the biotech industry about safety – yet again.  The Lugar-Casey Food Security Bill states foreign aid shall be used to conduct research on genetically modified organisms (GMOs)  without offering other options. It is time that Congress holds hearings to learn what lobbyist won’t tell them about what’s in their children’s diet.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) cites horrific results of GMO animal feeding studies, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, organ damage and gastrointestinal disorders. AAEM called for an immediate moratorium and asks physicians to prescribe non-GMO diets to all patients.

How did these high-risk products get in our food? Under the false impression that GMOs would increase U.S. exports, the Bush Administration instructed the FDA to fast-track approvals. The agency dutifully allowed GMOs onto our plates without a single required safety study or label. They justified their position claiming GM foods were not significantly different, but a 1998 lawsuit exposed this ruse. Subpoenaed FDA documents revealed the actual consensus among their scientists was that GMOs could lead to allergies, toxins, diseases and nutritional problems.

It’s time for our leaders, and the public, to know the whole story.

Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, Fairfield, Iowa

From: http://thehill.com/opinion/letters/97069-isp-response-strategy-is-key-to-curtailing-illegal-sharing

Experts Debunk Calls to Allow GMOs in Organics

    * By Ken Roseboro, ed.

      The Organic and Non-GMO Report, May 2010

      Straight to the Source

To Subscribe to the Non-GMO Report call 1-800-854-0586 or visit http://www.non-gmoreport.com/

Supporters of biotechnology have proposed integrating genetically modified organisms into organic agriculture. Spearheading this concept are Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at the University of California- Davis, and her husband Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer at the UC-Davis’s certified organic farm. The two co-authored a book, Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, which argues that combining both systems of agriculture-genetic engineering and organic techniques-offers the best solution to feeding the world in a sustainable way.

Tomorrow’s Table has been praised by GM crop supporters such as Bill Gates, and even by Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Working with vs. controlling nature

But several noted experts in organic agriculture dismiss the idea, saying the two approaches are fundamentally at odds. They say that genetically modified foods raise health and environmental concerns, narrow genetic diversity, reduce consumer choice, and don’t offer proven solutions to organic agriculture.

Dag Falck, organic program manager at Nature’s Path Foods, calls the proposed marriage of GMOs and organics a “non-starter for a conversation.”

“Organic is always looking to nature for answers; it is a very thought out and studied high-input agricultural system.”

Jim Riddle, organic outreach coordinator at the University of Minnesota and past chairman of the National Organic Standards Board, says “Organic agriculture is based on the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the agricultural ecosystem by farming in harmony with nature. Genetic engineering is based on the exact opposite-an attempt to control nature at its most intimate level-the genetic code.”

Health risks

Most organic experts point to health risks surrounding GM foods as a major reason why GMOs could never be integrated into organic agriculture.

Pamela Ronald has written that “there has not been a single case of illness associated with these (GM) crops.” This claim is often repeated by proponents of biotechnology but the reality is that no one knows if anyone has gotten sick eating GM foods because there is no monitoring to see if illnesses are linked to GM foods. “There is no data from independent, long-term studies on the human health impacts from eating GM crops,” says Tim LaSalle, chief executive officer of the Rodale Institute.

Others agree. “Right now, we clearly don’t know enough about GMOs to integrate them into anything,” says David Vetter, president of Grain Place Foods and organic farmer of 35 years.

“GM crops are comprised of novel genetic constructs which have never been part of the human diet and may not be recognized by the intestinal system as digestible food, leading to the possible relationship between genetic engineering and a dramatic increase in food allergies, obesity, diabetes, and other food-related diseases,” Riddle says.

Environmental impacts

Organic experts see opposite impacts on the environment with the two approaches. “Organic agriculture is based on the fundamental principle of building and maintaining healthy soil, aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems,” Riddle says. “To date, GM has led to an increase in the application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, with associated increases in soil erosion and water contamination, while producing foods with lower nutritional content.”

“Organic farming is about concerns for environment and stewardship, and I don’t think that GM crops fit in that context of stewardship and concern for the land,” says Maury Johnson, president, Blue River Hybrids, an organic seed company.

While organic farming aims to enhance genetic and biological diversity, GM crops are seen as reducing genetic diversity. “GM crops narrow and restrict our genetic base, which narrows and reduces options for our nutritional needs,” Vetter says.

Ronald and Adamchak point to the success of Bt cotton in reducing pesticide use as an example of how genetic engineering could benefit organic farmers. Kirschenmann says this “single tactic therapeutic intervention” creates unintended consequences. Pests eventually develop resistance as they’ve done to Bt cotton in India or other pests become a problem. The solution, says Kirschenmann, is an approach that encompasses the entire farming system, not just focusing on one pest.

“Pipe dream, not based on reality”

Organic experts say GMOs offer no benefits to organic agriculture. The two main genetically modified traits are a built-in pesticide, Bt, and herbicide tolerance. Dag Falck says neither application could benefit organic agriculture. “There is no GM application we could even remotely imagine being beneficial in organic. It’s a pipe dream and not based on reality.”

“To this point, biotech crops have not produced the yield advantages or biological resilience to multiple stressors. If we’re looking for reliable, multi-benefit, future-oriented farming options in an inputlimited world, biotech is not a player,” LaSalle says.

Eliminate consumer choice

Allowing GMOs into organic foods would also reduce consumer choice. “If genetic engineering became part of organic it would deprive people who want non-GMO foods,” says Margaret Mellon, senior scientist at Union of Concerned Scientists.

Organic consumers have already said they don’t want GMOs. A 1997 draft proposal to allow GMOs in the National Organic Program rules was removed after the US Department of Agriculture received more than 275,000 comments from people outraged by the possibility.

While there is strong consumer demand for organic foods, Riddle points out there is zero demand for GM foods. “Consumers aren’t demanding that foods be genetically engineered.”

“I’d rather rely on mother nature’s wisdom than man’s cleverness.” -Wendell Berry

David Vetter says this quote best captures his response to the idea of allowing GMOs in organics.

Any decision to allow GMOs in organics would not be decided by Pamela Ronald, Raoul Adamchak, Bill Gates, or the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “It resides with people in the organic community,” said Mellon, speaking to an audience of organic farmers at the Organic Farming Conference this past February. “It is your question to answer and not anyone else’s.”

Today, the answer remains-as it did in 1997 when 275,000 people told the USDA-a resounding “no.”

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20792.cfm

U.S. attempting global censorship of GMO food labeling

(NaturalNews) I received an urgent alert from Jeffrey Smith today about a dangerous situation taking place right now at the international CODEX conference. The U.S. is attempting to push its agenda to censor all GMO labeling of foods everywhere around the world. This would result in a global GMO cover-up as consumers are left in the dark about whether their foods and grocery products are genetically modified or not.

Your help is urgently needed to send a message to the Secretaries of State (Clinton), Agriculture (Vilsack), and Health and Human Services (Sebelius) to urge them to halt the USA’s nefarious attempts to install a global GMO deception.

Take part in this online petition, go here:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/GMFree/TakeAction/CodexConference/index.cfm

Please understand that the U.S. is attempting to outlaw non-GMO labeling of foods, thereby making it illegal for a non-GMO food product to even claim “non-GMO” on the label. If the U.S. succeeds in this global GMO cover-up, the FDA could seize any products in the USA that make “non-GMO” claims. Additionally, the USA could file lawsuits through the World Trade Organization against any country that allows non-GMO labeling or claims on its products.

Why is the U.S. pursuing such a devious and sinister course of action? Because, as you well know, virtually the entire federal government caters to the financial interests of powerful corporations — and these include the “Big Ag” giants like Monsanto that want to patent all seeds while destroying the no-GMOs movement. They want to turn non-GMO foods into violations of the law and thereby strip all such products from store shelves.

They want to keep American consumers left in the dark, ignorant of the real dangers posed by GMOs. And of course, they want to dominate the entire U.S. food supply with their toxic GMO crops.

These powerful, dangerous corporations are willing to do anything to achieve their global agenda, including forcing GMO censorship on the entire world.

They might just get away with it, too, unless you join us in speaking up right now to oppose this devious and dangerous action.

Add your voice to the online petition right here:

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/GMFree/TakeAction/CodexConference/index.cfm

Health Ranger interviews Jeffrey Smith

Watch my recent interview with Jeffrey Smith at the Health Freedom Expo in California.

Here, Jeffrey reveals the astounding truth about how dangerous GMOs really are for your health: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBPY6rcgoTs

Check out the Non-GMO shopping guide

The non-profit Center for Food Safety offers a fantastic free Non-GMO Shopping Guide available at http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/SG/Home/index.cfm

Check it out. There, you can learn which products are truly non-GMO, and you can learn how to avoid products that are most likely made with GMOs.

It teaches you to avoid corn, soybeans, canola and cottonseed ingredients, among other things. It’s sponsored by some of the most responsible natural products companies in the business: Nutiva, Nature’s Path, Straus, Woodstock Farms and others.

NaturalNews plans to expand its coverage of GMOs in the weeks ahead. Watch for more updates as this saga on GMOs is unveiled.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028716_GMOs_food_labels.html

Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here:  http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-may-14th/

Read more great, Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/05/real-food-wednesday-51210.html

Why Do People Hate Monsanto?

By Jim Duncan, reprinted with permission of the author.

Monsanto – Crown Prince of the New Robber Barons

We keep hearing an old story that should have died years ago: An organic farmer invites his children’s city cousins to visit. After the urban kids reveal that they eat McDonalds French fries twice a day, the farmer decides to experiment by having his own kids lay down in a field next to the city kids. After awhile, the farm kids are swatting away potato beetles but not single beetle comes near their city cousins.

True believers of this story are aware of some little known history. In the 1990’s, Monsanto released a “new leaf” potato genetically engineered with enough Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to repel potato beetles. McDonalds bought new leaf potatoes for its fries. No studies were ever done on the long term effects on people who consumed large quantities of such potatoes. We have never met any such storytellers who could identify an actual farmer who performed this test, so the story was always probably apocryphal. It’s undoubtedly so today because the new leaf potato never gained more than a five per cent share of the market, McDonalds quit buying them back in 2000 and Monsanto retired them soon afterwards.

The story lives on though because it incorporates the main ingredients of an urban (rural) legend – a worrisome hypothesis, an entertaining application and a logical conclusion. Therefore, it keeps finding new tellers among the growing tribe of those who are suspicious of industrial agriculture and all it represents.

Monsanto is the new Standard Oil, the corporation that typifies today the same relentless dominance of its industry that John D. Rockefeller’s company did in the Gilded Age. Like the old robber barons, Monsanto has successfully enlisted government support that helped them privatize profits while socializing the real costs of their products through subsidies, write-offs (of health and environmental damage) and ruthless stifling of both dissent and competition. Because both Monsanto and Standard Oil extracted the raw materials of their new technologies from the earth, with only a secondary regard for sustainability, they have been equally vilified by conservationists, naturalists and anyone who ever got in the way of their will.

In historical hindsight, it’s hard to hate Standard Oil. Few of us would choose to return to the days of whale oil lighting, steam engine transportation and pre-plastic economies. Though civilization might have found its way through the 20th century without Rockefeller’s indomitable guidance, it surely would not have done so as quickly or brightly. If governments turned their eyes away from the tactics of the old robbers barons it was because they had sold themselves as agents of a future prosperity that would trickle down to all. Monsanto similarly enjoys a privileged access through revolving doors of government because they have sold themselves as agents for universal prosperity.

Probably another hundred years will tell for sure but Monsanto has already convinced their farmer customers that they are “feeding the world” through higher yields, “saving the environment” with reduced use of pesticides and, lately, “promoting sustainability” by using seeds that are genetically modified to require less water. (That latter message has particularly irked the audience of National Public Radio where it’s been played via Monsanto sponsorship announcements.) On paper, those sound like reasonable endorsements for Monsanto’s technological innovations. Yet, that company has alienated so many people that it’s hard to find folks within the organic community who don’t believe Monsanto’s claims are disingenuous. How on earth did they manage to do that? Let’s begin to count the ways.

1. Impudently patenting mother earth. Monsanto, more than any other company, appropriated the concept of intellectual property rights to control farmers. To purchase their genetically modified seeds, a farmer must sign an “end-user agreement” that limits what he can do with them. Agreements are considered necessary to protect intellectual property, justifiably precluding replications that make the seeds unique. However, Monsanto and their ilk also explicitly forbid the use of the seeds for independent research. Scientists can be sued if they examine whether such genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects. Thus the only research that ever gets published in peer-reviewed journals is that approved by industrial seed companies. According the Scientific American, “In a number of cases, experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering.”

2. Bullying law suits. Monsanto’s lawyers spent a decade tracking down farmers who might have saved seeds for replanting, like responsible farmers have done since civilization began. They sued them and broke them. They also sued a number of organic dairy farmers who advertised that their milk came from cows that had not been fed bovine growth stimulants. Monsanto, which owned the most commercially successful such stimulant rBGH, claimed such ads implied there was something wrong with their product. With control over most research, Monsanto almost always won such cases.

3. Sterilizing Mother Earth. In 1998, the infamous US Patent # 5,723,765 threatened to change farming forever by giving Delta & Pine Land Co. rights to a new technology that sterilizes seeds, as well as any other seeds contaminated by them. Named genetic use restriction technology (GURT) and nicknamed The Terminator, it was frightfully unpopular in countries like India where farmers still primarily grow foods with seeds saved from previous crops. Monsanto pledged a moratorium on commercialization of Terminator technology but then it bought Delta & Pine Co. The Terminator would free Monsanto lawyers from hunting down farmers who save their seeds, so their pledge is viewed cynically by many folks.

4. Sterilizing Mother Earth – unless. GURT’s latest form, called reversible transgenic sterility, is nicknamed The Zombie and appears to be Monsanto’s way around its pledge. Whereas Terminator technology produces plants with sterile seeds, Zombie technology requires an annual chemical application (patented and sold by guess whom) to trigger fertility.

5. Bullying the media. Monsanto’s influence has long managed to kill stories unfavorable to the company, That is most famously documented in the movie “The Corporation” and in Jeffrey Smith‘s book “Genetic Roulette and Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods.” Both documented a 1990’s case in which a Fox-affiliated television station in Florida killed a thoroughly researched story about ill effects from milk produced by dairy cows given Monsanto’s rBGH.

6. Blatantly influencing FDA and USDA policy. Revolving doors swing between industry and government agencies all over the world but Monsanto’s manipulation of them has left its critics with jaws agape. Anyone who thought things might change in the Obama Administration was dismayed by this summer’s appointment of Monsanto’s former Vice President for Public Policy as Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner – for Food Safety. Michael Taylor is credited with ushering Monsanto’s rBGH through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply – unlabeled. He is also regarded as responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent” to natural foods and therefore not requiring any safety studies. That “substantially equivalent” ruling allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods are in fact quite different from natural foods and pose specific health risks.

With Taylor back in charge of implementing whatever food safety laws Congress might pass, Monsanto’s opponents are growing. They now have an entire line of anti-Monsanto T-shirts (www.zazzle.com/monsanto+tshirts). Most ask people to trust GMO’s based on past performances of products Monsanto would like us to forget – agent orange, P.C.B., aspartame, etc. Our favorite says “Soil is Soul” and “Monsanto deals in dirt.” That’s why many of the others are too dirty for us to print.

Reprinted with permission from Jim, from:

http://goodstewarding.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-do-people-hate-monsanto.html

Thanks Jim!

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here:  http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-may-7th/

Read more, great Pennywise Thursday Posts here: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2010/05/pennywise-platter-thursday-56.html

Read more, great Real Food Wednesday Posts here:  http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/05/real-food-wednesday-5510.html

(Sheila and I at the Demonstration)

We had a wonderful gathering yesterday at the San Diego Convention Center. 

There was a Science Conference, and Monsanto was there talking about their ‘sustainable’ plans for the future of food.  (It’s unconscionable that they’re using the word ‘sustainable’ in their talks about the devastating destruction they are doing to our food and environment)

I first heard about the demonstration last Wednesday from my friend Sheila. (thank you Sheila!) She belongs to a San Diego Community Farm & Garden meet up group and it was Carly who first suggested getting people together to demonstrate.

Everyone was terrific about getting the word out. I think we had at least 100 people there with only a 3-4 day advance notice. The signs were fantastic and Tim spent over an hour leading us in some great chants as we marched in front of the convention center.

It’s been so long since I’ve demonstrated, that I wasn’t sure what to expect. Was the convention center going to tell us to leave?  Would the police come?  Well, the security at the center was wonderful. They only asked us not to block the crosswalks and other then that left us alone.  The people from the conference for the most part were great as well. Some ignored us and some took brochures and flyers and asked questions too.

My hope, with Moms For Safe Food has always been to educate. I think there are many people who still don’t even know that GMO’s exist and I do think we reached a great number of people yesterday.

The Institute of Responsible Technology sent me a box of Non-GMO shopping guides and other wonderful resources. http://www.responsibletechnology.org

Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness brought a backpack full of The Institues ‘GMO Health Risk Brochures’.  I gave away every last shopping guide and there were a number of us passing out the brochures.  Sean has a great video of the day here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpifGU8EoLA

It was such an empowering experience joining together with a group of people who are also committed to spreading the truth of what Monsanto is doing to our food supply and environment. It is my sincere hope that this is the first of many more demonstrations. Power to the People!

Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-february-26th/

Read more great, Pennywise Platter Thursday posts here: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2010/02/pennywise-platter-thursday-22510.html

Read more great, Read Food Wednesday Posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/02/real-food-wednesday-22410.html

Non-GMO label getting a local push by Lundberg Family Farms

By HEATHER HACKING – Staff Writer

Posted Jan. 11th

RICHVALE — Lundberg Family Farms is among the leaders in a trend to label foods as non-GMO.

GMO stands for genetically modified organisms, which are created through transferring genes from one organism to another.

Most Americans consume genetically modified foods every day. The majority of soy, cotton, corn and canola grown in the United States contains genetically modified crops, most of which have been altered to resist pests and weeds.

Other genetically modified foods may contain higher nutrients, are more tolerant to adverse growing conditions or produce higher yields.

Previously there has been no organized system in the United States for people to know whether the foods they buy contain GMOs.

Over the past two years, Lundberg Family Farms, which produces organic rice products, and others in the organic industry have created a new labeling system and verification process to label foods as “non-GMO.”

The group is a nonprofit organization called the Non-GMO project.

Grant Lundberg, chief executive officer of his family’s business in Richvale, said Lundberg Family Farms has long been opposed to genetically modified foods, created through biotechnology.

Some genetically modified crops, such as corn and soybeans, spread pollen easily and can cross-pollinate with other crops, Lundberg explained.

“There is the potential to lose a lot of genetic history because when a product is released, it is very hard to keep it contained,” Lundberg said.

Some food consumers have also had difficulty if they want to buy foods that do not contain genetic modifications.

About two years ago, the company that specializes in organic rice products joined other natural food companies to develop a nonprofit group to label non-GMO products, “to give the consumers an informed choice about what they are eating,” Lundberg said.

The program has set up a “supply chain from seed breeders all the way through to retailers and consumers,” he continued.

The program includes a third-party verification process, followed by inclusion of the non-GMO label.

“We know our customers have those concerns,” Lundberg said. “The person who goes into the natural food store has certain expectations of their food. Our hope for the project is that we’re creating a standard.”

Other companies that helped fund the labeling project include Whole Foods Market, Eden Organic, Nature’s Path and United Natural Foods.

Lundberg said many foreign countries, including Japan, Australia and the European Union, require labeling if products contain genetically modified foods, which creates a trade barrier for some U.S. products.

“The general U.S. ag policy has been pro-GMO,” Lundberg said.

Currently, 50 brands in the United States and Canada have signed up for the new non-GMO project, he said, accounting for about 3,000 products.

Part of the labeling criteria includes a protocol to trace, test and segregate foods used, said Megan Westgate, executive director for the Non-GMO Project, based in Southern California.

The standard chosen by the group is 0.9 percent or less GMOs in foods — the same standards used in the European Union, Westgate explained.

The goal of the program is to make testing very efficient, so companies that do not use genetically modified foods don’t end up spending a lot of money on testing.

For example, Westgate said, 91 percent of soy grown in the United States is genetically modified. If a company uses soy oil, testing each truckload could cost up to $16,000 a year.

But if the soy oil is tested further up the supply chain, the cost for testing is greatly reduced, she said.

“We’re creating a structure in making non-GMO an affordable and practical thing.

“The most efficient place to test is when a crop is processed,” Westgate said.

In the next couple of months, companies will be using up the remainder of their packaging material and rolling out with the redesigned containers that include the non-GMO seal.

She said the hope is that people will see the labels and become more informed about GMOs.

From: http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_14163467

Supermarket News Forecasts Non-GMO uprising

By Jeffrey Smith

Author and founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology

Posted: January 8, 2010 05:26 PM

For a couple of years, the Institute for Responsible Technology has predicted that the US would soon experience a tipping point of consumer rejection against genetically modified foods; a change we’re all helping to bring about. Now a December article in Supermarket News supports both our prediction and the role the Institute is playing.

“The coming year promises to bring about a greater, more pervasive awarenes” of the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food supply, wrote Group Editor Robert Vosburgh, in a trade publication that conventional food executives and retailers use as a primary source of news and trends in the industry. Vosburgh describes how previous food “culprits” like fat and carbs “can even define the decade in which they were topical,” and suggests that GMOs may finally burst through into the public awareness and join their ranks.

Vosburgh credits two recent launches with “the potential to spark a new round of concern among shoppers who are today much more attuned to the ways their food is produced.” One is our Institute’s new non-GMO website, which, he says, “provides consumers with a directory of non-GMO brands . . . developed for the 53% of Americans who say they would avoid GMOs if labeled.'”

The other launch is the Non-GMO Project, offering “the country’s first consensus-based guidelines, which include third-party certification and a uniform seal for approved products. . . . The organization also requires documented traceability and segregation to ensure the tested ingredients are what go into the final product.”

He alerts supermarket executives that, “the growth of the organic (which bans GMO ingredients), local and green product categories reflects a generation of consumers who could be less tolerant of genetic modification.”

Please allow me to sit back with an I-told-you-so grin of satisfaction. Two years ago, I wrote a newsletter article describing three components that would move the market on GMOs:

1. The Non-GMO Project’s new “widely accepted definition for non-GMO” would spark a GMO cleanout, starting with the brands in the natural food industry.

    Our Institute endorses the Non-GMO Project and encourages food companies to enroll their products with this excellent nonprofit organization. Their official seal was introduced in October 2009 and has quickly become the national standard for meaningful non-GMO claims.

2. “Providing clear Non-GMO product choices” with our Non-GMO Shopping Guide would make it easier for consumers to select “non-GMO products by brand and category.”

    The same Guide is available as a website, a spread in magazines, a pocket guide, a two-sided download, and coming soon, a mobile phone application.

3. “Educating Health-Conscious Shoppers” about the health effects of GMOs is the key means by which GMOs will become a marketing liability—the next culprit.

From, and read the rest here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/emsupermarket-newsem-fore_b_416861.html

Will Organic farmers embrace GM crops to help feed the world?

Posted on: January 14, 2010 12:19 PM, by Pamela Ronald

In an interview with The Times, Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development at Imperial College London and a former government adviser said that the ban on organic farmers using GM crops was based on an excessively rigid rejection of synthetic approaches to farming and a misconception that natural ways were safer and more environment- friendly than man-made ones.

I completely agree with Gordon Conway that it makes sense for farmers to use the most powerful tools available to make their production more sustainable. Still, I think it unlikely in the short term that organic farmers will embrace the concept.

It is not that feeding the world, health of the consumers or care of the land are unimportant issues, it is just that the organic “brand” is now making a lot of money for all in the industry (Farmers, food processors, large corporate retailers such as Whole Foods, etc) and so there is zero incentive to change certification rules.

From: http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/2010/01/will_organic_farmers_embrace_g.php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link

If you go to the link above, there are some great comments and I’m sure we could all add some more!  – Mom

Read more, great Real Food Friday posts here:  http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-january-22nd/

Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage

by Rady Ananda

In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.

All three varieties of GM corn, Mon 810, Mon 863 and NK 603, were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities. Made public by European authorities in 2005, Monsanto’s confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats that these researchers analyzed is the same data, ironically, that was used to approve them in different parts of the world.

The Committee of Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen and Rouen studied Monsanto’s 90-day feeding trials data of insecticide producing Mon 810, Mon 863 and Roundup® herbicide absorbing NK 603 varieties of GM maize.

The data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric Séralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen.

Although different levels of adverse impact on vital organs were noticed between the three GMOs, the 2009 research shows specific effects associated with consumption of each GMO, differentiated by sex and dose.

Their December 2009 study appears in the International Journal of Biological Sciences (IJBS). This latest study conforms with a 2007 analysis by CRIIGEN on Mon 863, published in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, using the same data.

Monsanto rejected the 2007 conclusions, stating: “The analyses conducted by these authors are not consistent with what has been traditionally accepted for use by regulatory toxicologists for analysis of rat toxicology data.”1

In an email to me, Séralini explained that their study goes beyond Monsanto’s analysis by exploring the sex-differentiated health effects on mammals, which Doull, et al. ignored:

“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.”

Other problems with Monsanto’s conclusions

When testing for drug or pesticide safety, the standard protocol is to use three mammalian species. The subject studies only used rats, yet won GMO approval in more than a dozen nations.

Chronic problems are rarely discovered in 90 days; most often such tests run for up to two years. Tests “lasting longer than three months give more chances to reveal metabolic, nervous, immune, hormonal or cancer diseases,” wrote Seralini et al. in their Doull rebuttal.2

Further, Monsanto’s analysis compared unrelated feeding groups, muddying the results. The June 2009 rebuttal explains, “In order to isolate the effect of the GM transformation process from other variables, it is only valid to compare the GMO … with its isogenic non-GM equivalent.”

The researchers conclude that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

They have called for “an immediate ban on the import and cultivation of these GMOs and strongly recommend additional long-term (up to two years) and multi-generational animal feeding studies on at least three species to provide true scientifically valid data on the acute and chronic toxic effects of GM crops, feed and foods.”

Human health, of course, is of primary import to us, but ecological effects are also in play. Ninety-nine percent of GMO crops either tolerate or produce insecticide. This may be the reason we see bee colony collapse disorder and massive butterfly deaths. If GMOs are wiping out Earth’s pollinators, they are far more disastrous than the threat they pose to humans and other mammals.

From: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/

Read more, great, Real Food Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-january-8th/

Soy in Illinois prison diets prompts lawsuit over health effects

Group says plant protein causes problems for inmates

By Monica Eng

December 21, 2009

Soy-enhanced chili mac, turkey patties with soy, soy-studded country gravy, soy-blend hot dogs, soy-spiked sloppy joes, Polish sausages packed with soy, soy chicken patties.

These aren’t items from the latest vegetarian diet, but rather dishes served over a week at Danville

Correctional Center, according to a recent menu. They’re also the basis of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District

Court this summer by nine plaintiffs who allege that the Illinois Department of Corrections is endangering

the health of the inmates — especially those with allergies, sensitivities and existing gastrointestinal and

thyroid problems — by serving them too much soy.

Tens of thousands of inmates in Illinois prisons are being fed “up to 100 grams” of soy protein a day,

according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is funding the lawsuit. The U.S. Food and Drug

Administration recommends consuming about 25 grams of soy protein per day.

Based in Washington, D.C., the foundation promotes the consumption of whole, traditional and

largely unprocessed foods. Foundation president Sally Fallon called the soy diet served in Illinois

prisons “the Tuskegee of the 21st century,” referring to the syphilis experiments performed on

African-Americans from the 1930s to ’70s. “Never before have we had a large population like this being served such a high level of soy with almost no other choice,” she said.

The plaintiffs are “suffering irreparable, actual harm by being forced to continue to eat food that has

too much soy in it,” according to an amended complaint filed in June.

The effects have ranged from acute allergic reactions and heart problems to gastrointestinal distress

and thyroid dysfunction, it says. Fallon said the foundation got involved after inmates from various Illinois facilities contacted her. Last month, the foundation hosted a local panel on the soy issue before its annual national conference in Schaumburg.

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction that would stop the Department of Corrections from serving

soy in Illinois prisons as well as damages from the prisons’ contracted health care provider.

The department says it started serving soy-enhanced foods in March 2004 as a cost-cutting measure.

But it declined to comment on most aspects of the pending litigation and is awaiting a ruling on its

motion to dismiss the suit.

Nancy Chapman, executive director of the Soyfoods Association of North America, said she doubts

prisoners are consuming as much soy as the foundation alleges. “One hundred grams of any protein from plants or animals would not be economically feasible and would be an enormous load on the kidneys,” Chapman said.

Prison menus indicate inmates are served as many as seven soy-enhanced “meat” entrees a week. But

the foundation contends the inmates consume more soy through cooking oils and soy cheeses as well

as baked products enhanced with soy protein concentrates.

Once the darling of the health-food community, soy — especially non-fermented and genetically

modified soy — has fallen out of favor in some health circles. Last year the American Heart

Association urged the FDA to stop recommending soy as a way to reduce heart disease risk, saying

“direct cardiovascular benefits of soy protein or isoflavones are minimal at best.”

Scientific studies have volleyed back and forth on whether high soy consumption reduces or increases

cancer risk, inhibits mineral absorption and affects sperm concentrations.

But most agree that soy, especially unfermented varieties, can cause problems with the thyroid

function and digestion.

Recommendations vary on how much soy is healthy to consume. The American Dietetic Association

“believes that up to two servings of soy per day for adults could be part of a healthy diet,” said

spokeswoman Christine Gerbstadt. Examples of a serving include a half-cup of edamame, a cup of

soy milk, a half-cup of tofu or a slice of bread in which soy flour is a component.

United Soybean Board consultant and researcher Mark Messina similarly recommends 15 to 20 grams

of soy protein per day. Eating one soy burger (14 grams) and a cup of soy milk (7 grams) would

exceed that level.

Thomas Salonis, a former inmate who is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he nearly passed out in

2008 from gastrointestinal pain at the Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg.

He was diagnosed by a prison doctor as being allergic to soy — one of the eight most common food

allergies in the U.S., according to the FDA.

The doctor even wrote out a note, obtained by the Tribune, saying Salonis was allergic to soy. But the

prison made no changes, according to Salonis. Finally, after a hunger strike, he was offered work that

allowed him to buy instant soup from the commissary for his meals, he said.

The Department of Corrections says it accommodates medical diets but did not provide details as to

how.

At the panel the Weston A. Price Foundation hosted in Rogers Park, Salonis spoke about suffering

soy-induced stomach pain and bloating in prison. “Gas was really an issue,” said Salonis, who was released from prison last fall. “And most of my (cellmates) were real big, and they were like, ‘Hey man you gotta take that somewhere else.’ But I was like, ‘Where am I gonna take it?’ The whole thing was just offensive.”

The legal complaint alleges that tests show all nine plaintiffs have hormone, lipid and enzyme levels

consistent with thyroid damage caused by soy. Messina said soy intake is an issue only for those with

pre-existing thyroid conditions and/or iodine deficiencies. All agree that people with soy allergies

should not eat it.

The foundation says the Department of Corrections obtains most of its soy from Archer Daniels

Midland through its contracts with Central Management Services, which oversees food procurement

for the prisons. ADM said it has a contract to provide texturized vegetable protein and soy protein

concentrates to the department, but neither party would disclose the amounts.

The foundation also contends prisons are serving genetically modified soy, which it says can further

aggravate allergic reactions and mineral absorption.

Research by Monsanto, which developed herbicide-resistant soy, has found that the genetically

modified product has up to 27 percent more of a potential allergen called trypsin inhibitor than other

soy, said Jeffrey Smith, author of “Seeds of Deception,” a book that criticizes genetically modified

foods.

ADM said it cannot determine whether the soy products they supply to the Department of Corrections

come from genetically modified beans. The foundation has received nearly 200 letters about soy from prisoners in Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and Florida, according to Fallon, who urges a return to older food-service models. “Ten years ago many prisoners grew their own food,” she said. “They raised their beef, their chicken,

their vegetables and there was enough left over to sell it on the open market. … We need to go back to

that at prisons all over the country, teach them skills, get them outdoors in the sunlight with animals,

eating real nutritious foods so they can truly be rehabilitated back into society.”

When Fallon hears from families of soy-sensitive inmates, she urges them to send their incarcerated

relatives money so they can purchase foods from the commissary.

“We recommend sardines, summer sausage and, of all things, SPAM,” said Fallon, who usually

advocates eating chemical-free meat from pastured animals. “They supply good protein, stable fats,

vitamins A and D, and good minerals. They are in general very nutritious foods and provide just what

they are missing in their prison diet.” Fallon said the foundation also is concerned about the growing use of soy in institutions serving children and the elderly.

“Illinois has a pilot program to bring this kind of diet to the schools, to growing children,” she said.

Indeed, Chicago Public Schools menus incorporate soy-based texturized vegetable protein into their

meat products and regularly serve doughnuts made with soy flour. Despite the alleged suffering of inmates, Fallon says the diet in Illinois prisons presents an opportunity “to see what happens when you feed people soy with no other choices. This situation has brought it out into the open.”

meng@tribune.com

Soy in Illinois prison diets prompts lawsuit over health effects – … http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-soy-prison-diet-dec21…

GMO’s in the news

Here’s some recent GMO news, from around the world.

GE FREE NORTHLAND (NZ) Press Release l0 December 2009

Local Communities Reject The Risks Of GMO Land Use

The telephone poll on genetic engineering, recently commissioned by the Northland/Auckland Councils, clearly shows Auckland and Northland residents seek stricter regulation of any genetically modified (GE) plants and animals grown in their areas (or an outright ban on such activities).

The GE poll results show that concerns are widespread and the councils on the Working Party have been vindicated in adopting a precautionary approach in response to the wishes of their communities. Two thirds or more of those questioned favor regulation that would make users of GMOs legally responsible for any environmental or economic harm

The poll found clear support from the Northland and Auckland communities for establishing a GE-Free Zone, meaning only producing food that is GM free.

GE FREE NORTHLAND supports Northland councils acting on a local level to put in place substantive rules protecting their constituents and the environment from GMO land use. Extended lobbying of central government to date has failed to produce any result and there are still inadequate rules to protect primary producers, consumers, and the environment from users of GMOs.

GE FREE NORTHLAND Chairman Martin Robinson said today he applauded the commitment of local government to address the critical GE issue, as central government continues to ignore the concerns of many eminent scientists, territorial authorities and our key markets, as well as the majority of New Zealanders.

“The government needs to listen to the community. It is time for a strategy to protect and manage the New Zealand brand. If we are to succeed as a country and profitably export food to the world, someone needs to be able to stop GE contamination, unsustainable factory farming, and the destruction of our international reputation which so many Kiwi primary producers rely on,” said Martin Robinson.

“It is critical that the interests of local government are protected and the wishes of their communities are addressed.”

Martin Robinson said genetic engineering and the lack of strict liability has galvanised Northlanders, with the issue raising one of the most serious biosecurity risks to the region.

Councils’ concerns about GE relate mainly to uncertainties over the economic risks to conventional and organic food producers, the uncertainties over who should bear liability relating to these risks, and the failure by central government agencies to perform professionally.

Without a strict liability regime, innocent third parties and local authorities remain at risk. Liability for unforeseen adverse effects of GE needs to be satisfactorily resolved before any GE experiments are permitted in Auckland/Northland peninsula.

The majority of New Zealanders don’t want to eat genetically engineered food, and they don’t want genetically engineered organisms released into their backyard.

Northland is a prime candidate for REGIONAL EXCLUSION ZONE designation, due to its geographical location and the risks GE presents to our economy and environment.

From: http://web.gefreenorthland.org.nz/

How to avoid genetically modified organisms (GMOs) food products

December 2, 12:18 PMRaleigh Environmental Health ExaminerMonica B

The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) launched a new website http://www.nonGMOShoppingGuide.com that takes the guesswork out of how to avoid genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and gene-spliced food products. With polls indicating that 9 out of 10 Americans want GMOs labeled, 53% of Americans who say they would avoid GMOs if labeled. It also lists popular brands that don’t use ingredients from the eight GM crops such as GM soy and corn. It also lists dairy products that don’t allow the controversial GM bovine growth hormone.

If it’s not labeled organic, avoid products made with the “Big Four” GM crops: Corn, Soybeans, Canola, and Cottonseed, used in processed foods. Also, more than 50% of Hawaiian papaya is GM and a small amount of zucchini and yellow squash. Also, become familiar with their  list of invisible GM ingredients and avoid sugar from GM Sugar Beets.

The only feeding study done with humans showed that GMOs survived inside the stomach of the people eating GMO food. No follow-up studies were done. Various feeding studies in animals have resulted in potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, damaged immune systems, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy or increased density of the liver, odd shaped cell nuclei and other unexplained anomalies, false pregnancies and higher death rates.

From: http://www.examiner.com/x-20990-Raleigh-Environmental-Health-Examiner~y2009m12d2-How-to-avoid-genetically-modified-organisms-GMOs-food-products

Choice Organic Teas to be Non-GMO Verified

SEATTLE—Choice Organic Teas is the first tea company to enroll as an official participant in the Non-GMO Project’s Verification Program. The company’s flagship “Original” product line is in the process of being verified, with other products to follow.

The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit organization created by leaders in all sectors of the natural and organic products industry from the United States and Canada to offer consumers a consistent non-GMO choice for organic and natural products that are produced without genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technologies. It began as a collaborative effort among independent natural food retailers who wanted to ensure their customers had an abundant selection of clearly labeled, independently verified non-GMO choices. The Project verifies all types of products, including those (like tea) that are not yet produced commercially in GMO form. This allows shoppers to easily identify non-GMO items, and also helps reduce the likelihood of new GMO crops being commercialized.

“We’re proud to be at the forefront of yet another critical issue facing our industry and our customers,” says Ray Lacorte, head of operations for Choice Organic Teas. “By supporting the Non-GMO Project we hope to inspire other manufacturers to seek alternatives to GMOs into the future.”

From: http://www.naturalproductsmarketplace.com/news/2009/12/choice-organic-teas-to-be-nongmo-verified.aspx

GMOs could affect wildlife

Students Samantha Butenas, Brian Noland, Kyle Plyman and Mark Wagner examined the effects of genetically modified organisms on wildlife around the world.

“While genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have allowed for a new paradigm of development for agriculture, controversy remains as to the safety and potential adverse effects of GMOs on wildlife.

Insect populations in particular, whose destruction remains the object of many GMOs, have rapidly developed resistance to GMOs and the pesticides required for their maintenance. Genetically modified species of trees, also known as ‘Frankentrees,’ provide cause for concern about the potential imbalances that can result from GMOs.

In addition, genetically modified animals now allow for the realization of a ‘Frankenfuture’ of destructive potential for natural ecosystems and the wildlife they help to sustain.

Please visit our web site (http://gmorganism.webs.com) to learn more.”

From: http://media.www.unews.com/media/storage/paper274/news/2009/12/07/SpecialSection/Gmos-Could.Affect.Wildlife-3846983.shtml

And this is NOT good news:

Syngenta GMO maize finally approved for feed, food imports

Monday, 30 November 2009 15:05

After several months of impasse, Syngenta’s genetically modified maize type MIR604 has been finally approved by the European Commission today. The maize type has been authorised for food and feed uses as well as imports and processing in the EU (however growing it will not be allowed). The Commission says in a statement. Following to the EU’s decision, imports of soymeal and soybeans for animal feed could start again.

The request for authorization was addressed to EU Council after that the European Committee for Human Food and Animal Feed failed to find an agreement about the proposal – not in favor nor against it. Accordingly to the current legislation, the authorization request has then went back to the European Commission, which today has finally approved it.

“The MIR604 maize received a positive safety assessment from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) – which has been hit by recent polemics – and underwent the full authorisation procedure set up in the EU legislation”, the Commission said.

From: http://en.greenplanet.net/food/gmo/1182-syngenta-gmo-maize-finally-approved-for-feed-food-imports.html

 * By Ken Roseboro, ed.

      The Organic and Non-GMO Report, November 2009

      Straight to the Source

To Subscribe to the Non-GMO Report call 1-800-854-0586 or visit http://www.non-gmoreport.com/

Agro-ecologist Don Lotter published a paper titled “The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science” in the 2009 edition of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food.

The paper makes a damning case against genetically modified foods, saying the technology is based on obsolete science, that biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have too much influence on government regulators and “public” universities, and that university scientists are ignoring the health and environmental risks of GM crops. Lotter calls the introduction of GM foods the “largest diet experiment in history.”

Lotter has a Ph.D. in agro-ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a master of professional studies in international agricultural and rural development from Cornell University. He has taught environmental science, soil science, plant science, entomology, and vegetable crop production for Santa Monica College, Imperial Valley College, and UC-Davis.

Lotter does not have a tenured position and is currently working on an agricultural project in Tanzania. He half-jokingly describes his paper as “career destroying” because he says it will be difficult to find a position at a US university due to the general recognition at most US universities that GM foods are safe and will help “feed the world.”

If you thought publishing the paper would jeopardize your prospects for finding a position, why did you write the paper?

DL: I’m proud of the paper. This topic should be taught at universities. There is an enormous gap in public knowledge about this issue.

The science of genetic engineering is based on the one gene-one protein doctrine. Please describe this and why you think it is flawed.

DL: When they discovered the technology there was a simplified view that genes were in charge of the production of proteins. It is the entire basis for going forward with genetic engineering technology.

Then the Human Genome Project showed that humans have fewer genes than simple organisms, but we also have one to two million proteins. This discovery put an end to the one gene-one protein doctrine.

But by then there had been a massive investment in transgenics. The industry moved ahead with all their PR of “feeding the world” without any scientific basis for their technology. The doctrine has crumbled away, yet the industry has gone on.

In your paper you say that the process of genetically engineering foods is also deeply flawed. Can you give some examples of why that is the case?

DL: The promoter gene used in genetically engineered crops, the cauliflower mosaic virus, is a powerful promoter of inter-species gene exchange. Scientists thought it would be denatured in our digestive system, but it’s not. It has been shown to promote the transfer of transgenes from GM foods to the bacteria within our digestive system, which are responsible for 80% of our immune system function; they are enormously important. This is a huge flaw, but not even the biggest in crop transgenics.

The process of splicing genes into plant genomes, transgenics, causes serious genetic damage-mutations, multiple copies of the transgenic DNA, gene silencing. The ramifications of this damage, incredibly, have never been elucidated or even explored for that matter.

Do you think the increase in food allergies we are seeing may be due to GM foods?

DL: Yes, there is evidence pointing to it. The industry is powerful enough to stop any labeling legislation. Without labeling they can’t track these problems. We know that after the introduction of GM soy in Britain, there was an increase of soy allergies there.

In your paper, you write that the lack of oversight of GM foods has been a major failure of US science leadership. What makes you believe this?

DL: In the early 1980s, the biotech companies were successful in getting to oversee the regulation of GM foods. The scientific community should have stepped in, and said this is a radical technology, but it didn’t.

There has also been a restructuring of the relationship between industry and universities. The Bayh-Dole Act (which gives universities intellectual property control of their inventions) made universities more dependent on industry.

Universities saw transgenics as a big money source, and scientists who objected were harassed or pushed out.

Do you think any US university would fund studies on GM food safety?

DL: No, they are not doing that. Anyone who tries to conduct research looking at GM food safety is given trouble.

Universities should have a mandate to find problems with GM foods.

We need federal money to look at non-proprietary solutions, such as organic farming systems, to the world’s problems, and we should see whether proprietary approaches (i.e. GM foods) cause problems.

Unfortunately, non-proprietary solutions don’t get funding.

We can show that organic farming systems promote drought resistance; the Rodale Institute did this research. But if a GM crop had been found to resist drought, there would have been major news headlines saying that it will save the world.

Is the safety of GM food considered a given at US universities?

DL: Absolutely. The debate is not there. US scientists have abdicated their responsibility on this issue. They know problems exist but they don’t want to talk about them. Most scientists say we need GM foods to feed the world.

Some social scientists are saying there are problems (with GM foods).

I think undergraduate groups will bring the debate over GM foods to universities.

What type of agricultural approaches do you think will solve the world’s food production challenges?

DL: The IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development) report said that we can produce food using agro-ecological methods and successful green revolution methods. The report didn’t include transgenics.

The report was signed by 60 countries, but the US didn’t sign it.

Read more great Fight Back Friday posts here:  http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-december-4th/

I do look forward to the day that there’s no GMO’s left. It’s time to encourage our farmers to grow real food. We can all do that by buying organic & pesticide free food from our local farmers – Mom

Monsanto guilty in ‘false ad’ row

France’s highest court has ruled that US agrochemical giant Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of its best-selling weed-killer, Roundup.

The court confirmed an earlier judgment that Monsanto had falsely advertised its herbicide as “biodegradable” and claimed it “left the soil clean”.

The company was fined 15,000 euros (£13,800; $22,400). It has yet to comment on the judgment.

Roundup is the world’s best-selling herbicide.

Monsanto also sells crops genetically-engineered to be tolerant to Roundup.

French environmental groups had brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup’s main ingredient, is classed as “dangerous for the environment” by the European Union.

In the latest ruling, France’s Supreme Court upheld two earlier convictions against Monsanto by the Lyon criminal court in 2007, and the Lyon court of appeal in 2008, the AFP news agency reports.

Earlier this month, Monsanto reported a fourth quarter loss of $233m (£147m), driven mostly by a drop in sales of its Roundup brand.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8308903.stm

Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa

South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds.The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered compensation.

Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces,on alleged ‘underfertilisation processes in the laboratory”. Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn problems.

Urgent investigation demanded

However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto’s genetically-manipulated technology.

Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in three provinces – North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers’ cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that ‘less than 25%’ of three different corn varieties were ‘insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory’.

80% crop failure

However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem.According to her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures. The centre is strongly opposed to GM-food and biologically-manipulated technology in general.

“Monsanto says they just made a mistake in the laboratory, however we say that biotechnology is a failure.You cannot make a ‘mistake’ with three different varieties of corn.’

Demands urgent government investigation:

“We have been warning against GM-technology for years, we have been warning Monsanto that there will be problems,’ said Mayet. She calls for an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods in South Africa.

Of the 1,000 South African farmers who planted Monsanto’s GM-maize this year, 280 suffered extensive crop failure, writes Rapport.

Monsanto’s local spokeswoman Magda du Toit said the ‘company is engaged in establishing the exact extent of the damage on the farms’. She did not want to speculate on the extent of the financial losses suffered right now.

Managing director of Monsanto in Africa, Kobus Lindeque, said however that ‘less than 25% of the Monsanto-seeded farms are involved in the loss’. He says there will be ‘a review of the seed-production methods of the three varieties involved in the failure, and we will made the necessary adjustments.’

He denied that the problem was caused in any way by ‘bio-technology’. Instead, there had been ‘insufficient fertilization during the seed-production process’.

And Grain-SA’s Nico Hawkins says they ‘are still support GM-technology; ‘We will support any technology which will improve production.’ He also they were ‘satisfied with Monsanto’s handling of the case,’ and said Grain-SA was ‘closely involved in the claims-adjustment methodology’ between the farmers and Monsanto.

Farmers told Rapport that Monsanto was ‘bending over backwards to try and accommodate them in solving the problem. “It’s a very good gesture to immediately offer to compensate the farmers for losses they suffered,’ said Kobus van Coller, one of the Free State farmers who discovered that his maize cobs were practically seedless this week. “One can’t see from the outside whether a plant is unseeded. One must open up the cob leaves to establish the problem,’ he said. The seedless cobs show no sign of disease or any kind of fungus. They just have very few seeds, often none at all.

The South African supermarket-chain Woolworths already banned GM-foods from its shelves in 2000. However South African farmers have been producing GM-corn for years: they were among the first countries other than the United States to start using the Monsanto products.

The South African government does not require any labeling of GM-foods. Corn is the main staple food for South Africa’s 48-million people. The three maize varieties which failed to produce seeds were designed with a built-in resistance to weed-killers, and manipulated to increase yields per hectare, Rapport writes.

From: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/270101

Here’s another great article about Monsanto from Dr. Mercola, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/21/France-Finds-Monsanto-Guilty-of-Lying.aspx

Read more great Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/11/real-food-wednesday-112509.html

Avoiding GMOs—It’s Harder than You Think

By Stanley A. Fishman, Author of Tender Grassfed Meat

Want to avoid GMOs? You’re not alone. Polls consistently show that 90 percent of the people polled would not buy a product if they knew it contained GMOs.

Perhaps that is the reason that the United States government has made it illegal for manufacturers and sellers to label a product as containing GMOs.

While 90 percent of the people would not knowingly eat GMOs, it is likely that over 90 percent of the American food supply contains GMOs.

Even Organic Food May Be Contaminated with GMOs

I used to think that I could avoid GMOs by buying organic. Sadly, that is no longer true. Seeds from GMO crops are blown by the wind, or transferred by insects, and can contaminate non-GMO crops, even organic crops.

I learned this the hard way. We buy all of our milk and cream from an excellent local dairy. I was recently shocked to learn that the owner of the dairy had tested the organic grains he bought for his herd, and found that one-third of the grain was contaminated by GMOs. He now tests every lot of grain he gets before feeding it to his cattle. I had thoroughly investigated the dairy, researched their methods, philosophy, and feed. I was convinced that their products were free of GMOs. I was wrong.

The contamination of the Canadian flax crop by GMO flax was described on this website on November 9, 2009. https://www.momsforsafefood.org/Blog/Entries/2009/11/9_Entry_1.html

The situation has been made worse by the weakening of the organic standards. It used to be that the word “organic” meant that everything in the product had to be 100 percent organic and that no GMOs were allowed.

The new organic standards, adopted during the Bush Administration, created three different definitions of organic:

1)“100 percent organic” means that all ingredients in the product must be organic.

2)“Organic” means that no less than 95 percent of all ingredients in the product are organic. The remaining 5 percent do not have to be organic.

3)“Made with organic ingredients” means that at least 70 percent of the ingredients in the product are organic. The remaining 30 percent do not have to be organic.

I’ve seen conflicting information on whether the non-organic ingredients contained in organic products must be free of GMOs.

The contamination of organic crops by GMOs has become such a huge problem that a major effort is under way to test organic products for GMO contamination and to create a non-GMO label.

GMOs Are Everywhere

It is estimated that over 91 percent of the soybeans, over 75 percent of the corn, over 70 percent of the canola, and over 80 percent of the cotton grown in the United States is GMO. Oils made from soy, corn, canola, and cotton are commonly added to processed foods. These oils constitute the vast majority of “vegetable oil” used in the United States. Many other substances made from GMO soy and GMO corn are added to processed foods. Conventional vegetables are often coated with a wax that contains oils made from GMO soy and/or GMO corn.

GMO bacteria and other GMO substances are used in the manufacture of many medications. GMO soy products are often added to supplements. Pesticides containing GMOs are often sprayed on crops. Several artificial sweeteners contain GMOs.

How to Avoid GMOs

Since GMOs are so pervasive, it is hard to avoid them. But it is not impossible. Here are some tips that I use to avoid GMOs:

Avoid Processed Foods

Almost all conventional processed foods contain GMOs. An exception would be processed foods that state they have no GMOs. Even organic processed foods may contain GMOs, due to the contamination of organic crops by GMOs.

The only processed foods I buy are labeled 100 percent organic and do not contain any of the most common genetically altered crops, such as soy, corn, canola, and cotton. I will not buy something that contains “vegetable oil,” as vegetable oil almost always consists of soy, corn, or canola oil.

Eat Only Organic (Or the Equivalent) Dairy Products

Conventional dairy products almost always come from cattle that have been fed GMO feed, such as soy and corn. Some conventional cows have been injected with genetically modified bovine growth hormone. It is important to research the dairy you use to make sure that it really is organic, or the equivalent.

Eat Only Grassfed and Grass-Finished Beef, Lamb, and Bison

Conventionally raised beef, lamb, and bison are usually fed GMO feed.

Eat Only Organic (Or the Equivalent) Produce

Conventional produce is often sprayed with GMO pesticide, and/or coated with wax containing GMO oils.

Don’t Eat Anything Containing Soy, Corn, Canola, or Cotton

Because so many of these crops are GMO, even the organic versions are often contaminated with GMOs.

Only Eat Seafood that Is Wild Caught

Farmed fish and other farmed seafood are usually fed pellets made from GMO soy.

Do Not Use Artificial Sweeteners

Some artificial sweeteners are made with GMOs. If you must use a sweetener, stevia is a natural non-GMO substance.

Only Use Organic Sugar Made from Sugar Cane

At least half of the sugar in the United States is made from sugar beets. As of 2008, most of the sugar beets used for making sugar are GMO. While a Federal judge has recently ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated the law by approving the use of genetically modified sugar beets without first having a comprehensive report done on its environmental impact, the Court has not yet, to my knowledge, prohibited the actual sale and growing of these GMOs. Sugar made from sugar cane, is not GMO.

Know Your Source, Buy Local

One of the best ways to avoid GMOs is to buy as much of your food as possible from local farmers and ranchers who do not use GMOs. You can actually ask them how they raise their crops and animals, and find out exactly what you’re getting.

Be Informed and Be Vigilant

Knowledge is power. The biotech industry is constantly trying to introduce new GMO crops and the only way you will know about it is by checking the news on a regular basis. The conventional media is not interested in exposing the existence of new GMOs, and your best source is the Internet. There is no better place to start than this website.

Read more, great Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-friday-november-13th/

I highly recommend Stanley’s cookbook, we use it all the time. – Mom