Our opposition to Golden Rice and other GM crops are founded on solid arguments and actual experiences of Filipino farmers on GM crops. Filipino farmers who have been planting GM crops suffered negative income, health problems and poisoned environment.
A new bill to let food producers decide whether to label GMOs could prevent states from passing mandatory labeling laws. It’s expected to be introduced in the next few weeks—so we need to dissuade potential co-sponsors now! At the behest of the Monsantos and Cargills of the world, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) is expected to reintroduce his Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act in the next week or two. If passed, it would nullify the efforts of ten states that are currently considering bills to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods.
Seeds represent the foundation of life. We depend on them for food, for medicine and for our very survival. In many ways, you can trace the underpinnings of any given culture through the heritage of their crops and seeds. It wasn’t long ago when seeds were mostly the concern of farmers who, as the Worldwatch Institute put it, “were the seed producers and the guardians of societies’ crop heritage." But this is no longer the case. Once considered to be the property of all, like water or even air, seeds have become largely privatized, such that only a handful of companies now control the global food supply. Ninety-three percent of seeds were lost from 1903 to 1993. Just four agrichemical companies own 43 percent of the world’s commercial seed supply. The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are in danger of extinction.
Although the US has the strictest food safety laws in the world governing new additives, the FDA has allowed GMOs to evade those laws. The sole purported legal basis for the marketing of GE foods in the United States is the FDA’s claim that they are Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) – a claim that is clearly fraudulent. Documents released as a result of a lawsuit against the FDA reveal that the agency’s scientists warned superiors that GE foods pose greater risks than conventional ones – but that their warnings were spurned and covered up. Monsanto could never have implemented their global food takeover strategy had the groundwork not been laid by the deceptions of a number of prominent molecular biologists that began during the 1970’s.
"We need to ban glyphosate from our own communities as most governments fail to protect citizens" - Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji, The Institute of Science in Society
A Russian group working with scientists is set to launch what they call the world’s largest and most comprehensive long-term health study on a GM food. The $25m three-year experiment will involve scientists testing thousands of rats which will be fed differing diets of a Monsanto GM maize and the world’s most widely-used herbicide which it it is engineered to be grown with. The organisers of the Factor GMO [genetically modified organism] study, announced in London (recently) and due to start fully next year, say it will investigate the long-term health effects of a diet of a GM maize developed by US seed and chemical company Monsanto. “It will answer the question: is this GM food, and associated pesticide, safe for human health?” said Elena Sharoykina, a campaigner and co-founder of the Russian national association for genetic safety (Nags), the co-ordinator of the experiment.
Health Impact News recently announced the result of an investigation by Tropical Traditions that revealed that many products in the organic grain market in the U.S. contain glyphosate residue at levels almost the same as conventional grains. In an effort to provide clean food free from glyphosate and GMO contamination, Tropical Traditions continues to test USDA certified organic products to determine which products may be contaminated. In this report we reveal which additional organic products have been tested, and what the results of those tests were.
Last week saw an inter-agency power grab. It begins with the weakening of organic standards—and could end with the term “organic” becoming practically meaningless. Action Alert! Tell the USDA to use a public and transparent process for all major changes to organic standards by publishing proposed changes in the Federal Register, and actively seeking public input and discussion. In addition, tell the USDA to enforce the sunset provision of the OFPA as it was originally intended—allowing synthetic products to remain after their “sunset” date only after public debate and a two-thirds vote of the NOSB. More than 100 synthetics will be up for sunset consideration in 2015. We must act now to protect the integrity of organics.
The United States now uses about 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides each year, and mounting research has linked pesticides to an array of serious health problems. What we need is not a new breed of chemical-resistant crops, but that’s exactly what we’re getting.
In a ruling lauded by Costa Rica’s anti-GMO activists, the country’s Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court struck down the government’s regulatory framework on genetically modified organisms, declaring the process of approval for GMO projects unconstitutional. In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Gilbert Armijo Sancho wrote that the regulations violate the Costa Rican Constitution because the secrecy allowed to GMO companies in terms of the genetic information of their products violates the constitutional right to freedom of information. “This is an important precedent that shows the interests of companies linked to this type of activity – among them the multinational Monsanto which is seeking permits to plant corn – have benefited from the granting of permits in a manner that violates the fundamental rights of the population,” FECON said.
