News regarding the dangers of GMOs and biotech, and the advantages of organic sustainable agriculture.
Florida Couple Files Lawsuit Over Ban on Front-Yard Vegetable Gardens
May the government prohibit you from peacefully and productively using your own property to feed your family? For 17 years, Hermine Ricketts and her husband Tom Carroll used their front yard to grow food for their own personal consumption. And for 17 years, nobody had a problem with it . . . until now. In May 2013, Miami Shores Village, Fla. amended its ordinance to make clear that front-yard vegetable gardens were prohibited. Only vegetables are explicitly banned—trees, fruit and garden gnomes are just fine. A few days later, the Village’s code enforcement department served Hermine and Tom with a notice informing them they were in violation of the front-yard vegetable ban. The department threatened them with fines of $50 per day if they did not destroy their beautiful garden. Unable to bear the cost of such hefty fines, Hermine and Tom had no option but to surrender to the government’s demands and uproot the garden. The battle, however, is far from over. Hermine and Tom are part of a nationwide movement of small-scale food producers and consumers who are tired of the government dictating what foods they can grow, sell, and eat. On November 19, 2013, they joined with the Institute for Justice to challenge Miami Shores’ senseless front-yard vegetable garden ban. Their case aims to vindicate the right of all Americans to peacefully use their own property to support their own families.
Farmer Fights Back: Sues State of Oregon For Ban on Free Speech in Advertising Raw Milk
An Oregon raw milk farmer is fighting back against Big Dairy and the state of Oregon for limiting her free speech. The state of Oregon allows limited sales of raw milk from the farm. Based on a law passed in 1999, if a farmer has 3 or less dairy cows, with no more than two lactating, they can sell raw milk directly to the public. Yet, in spite of these tight restrictions, the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association pushed for even more restrictions last year. So while it is still currently legal to sell raw milk from a 2-cow dairy farm, it is a criminal offense if you advertise your product. If a raw milk dairy farm even publishes the cost of their product online, they can face a year in jail and $6,250 in fines. All Oregon farmers who sell milk on the farm directly to consumers are prohibited from advertising the milk online, in fliers, via email or on signs. Being faced with the possibility of going out of business, Christina decided to fight back, with the help of the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm based out of Alrington Virginia. This week they filed a suit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture in U.S. District Court in Portland, claiming farmers' Constitutional rights to free speech are being violated.
Your Taxpayer-Subsidized Farm Bill Aid Goes to U.S. Billionaire “Farmers”
When most people think about farm subsidies, chances are they do not immediately think "massive taxpayer money boondoggle that should be cut from the federal budget immediately." They've probably heard about how hard it is out there for small family farmers, doing honest work in the world, keeping everyone fed and maintaining our institutional repository of agricultural practices. Surely, these subsidies are helping to keep an important way of life alive for the True Sons of Soil and Toil ... like, say, multi-billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Wait. What? He's a farmer? Ha ha, yes. As it turns out, your taxpayer dollars "subsidize" the "farming" that's being done by a host of mega-rich superstars from the Forbes 400 list, none of whom you'd immediately associate with the sort of hardscrabble agri-artisan who's in need of a leg up from the federal government. But their numbers are legion. According to the Environmental Working Group, "at least 50 billionaires or farm businesses in which they had a financial interest benefited from $11.3 million in traditional farm subsidies between 1995 and 2012." And the farm bill currently being considered contains changes that will likely increase the subsidies these billionaires take away.
Kauai County Council Override Frees Way For GMO Bill
The Kauai County Council has overridden Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s veto of Bill 2491, freeing the way for the GMO-related bill. Bill 2491, which passed a County Council vote on Oct. 16, will force agricultural companies to disclose when and where they spray pesticides, restrict spraying to a certain distance away from public areas, and disclose what genetically engineered crops they grow on Kauai.
Codex: Will Biofortification Open the Backdoor for GMO Crops Worldwide?
Codex Alimentarius is a joint project of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. It’s a collection of internationally adopted food standards and guidelines intended to facilitate global trade. There are a number of specialized subcommittees whose recommendations are formally adopted by the Codex Executive Committeem including the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU). One of the CCNFSDU’s tasks is to set “Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) for Food Labeling Purposes.” Translation: NRVs are the intake levels of nutrients deemed adequate to meet the needs of most people through fortification of these foods. According to most natural health experts, the NRVs set by the CCNFSDU are far too low for maintaining optimal health, much less correcting nutrient-based deficiencies and imbalances. Biofortification is the breeding of crops to increase their nutritional value. It differs from ordinary fortification, because it focuses on making crops more nutritious as they grow, rather than during processing. Biofortification can either be achieved conventionally—via traditional breeding techniques—or through genetic engineering. Essentially, this could be a backdoor method to releasing new GMOs crops onto the international market without proper vetting or labeling.
How Roundup Weedkiller Can Promote Cancer, New Study Reveals
Roundup herbicide (glyphosate) is in our air, rain, groundwater, soil and most food in the U.S., and an increasing body of research reveals it has cancer-promoting properties. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research have recently confirmed the carcinogenic potential of Roundup herbicide using human skin cells (HaCaT ) exposed to extremely low concentrations of the world's best selling herbicide.
Demon Weeds and Human Health Impacts of Glyphosate
While recent research is looking at the health consequences of consuming genetically modified foods, equally concerning is the failure of glyphosate and other herbicides to control a new breed of "demon weeds" that have arisen as a byproduct of the GMO industry. Many older and more toxic classes of pesticides are also returning to the market place as pests become resistant to GMOs, and the government is allowing increased use of pesticides for food production. The Alliance for Natural Health has just released a new video highlighting the health concerns of these "demon weeds" as well as the toxic effects of glyphosate. A new study from ANH-USA finds that exposure to glyphosate, an ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup is linked to very serious human health issues – including birth defects, miscarriages and cancer. With so many GMO-related initiatives around the country, your involvement can make a significant positive difference in this fight.
Tropical Traditions Announces New GMO-Tested Product Standards
Tropical Traditions recently announced that they had established their own standards for non-GMO products. The new standard is "GMO-Tested." While other non-GMO claims might have as much as 1% presence of genetically modified DNA present, the Tropical Traditions GMO-Tested standard has a zero percent tolerance for the presence of genetically modified materials.
Indonesia Developing World’s First GMO Sugar Cane
White sugar, in any form, is not very healthy. But at least one can choose sugar cane over sugar beets to be assured you are not consuming a GMO product. Sadly, that may not be true much longer, as Indonesia announced recently that they were developing a GMO variety of sugar cane.
Companies Rush to Build ‘bio-factories’ for GMO Medicines, Flavorings and Fuels
For scientist Jack Newman, creating a new life-form has become as simple as this: He types out a DNA sequence on his laptop. Clicks “send.” And a few yards away in the laboratory, robotic arms mix together some compounds to produce the desired cells. Newman’s biotech company is creating new organisms, most forms of genetically modified yeast, at the dizzying rate of more than 1,500 a day. Some convert sugar into medicines. Others create moisturizers that can be used in cosmetics. “You can now build a cell the same way you might build an app for your iPhone,” said Newman, chief science officer of Amyris. The rush to biological means of production promises to revolutionize the chemical industry and transform the economy, but it also raises questions about environmental safety and biosecurity and revives ethical debates about “playing God.” Hundreds of products are in the pipeline. Laboratory-grown artemisinin, a key anti-malarial drug, went on sale in April with the potential to help stabilize supply issues. A vanilla flavoring that promises to be significantly cheaper than the costly extract made from beans grown in rain forests is scheduled to hit the markets in 2014. What if they are accidentally released and evolve to have harmful characteristics? “There is no regulatory structure or even protocols for assessing the safety of synthetic organisms in the environment.”
Lack of GMO Labeling is Reducing our Exports and Costing the U.S. Jobs
Joanna Shepherd-Bailey, PhD, has released a new report demonstrating how not labeling GMOs hurts the economy, makes the food industry less competitive worldwide, has a negative impact on food exports, imports, and jobs, diminishes tax revenue, and has a ripple impact on other associated industries. This is all, of course, in addition to the harm to consumers who are forced to eat an untested and potentially very dangerous food. What will happen if we don’t label GMOs? Dr. Shepherd-Bailey’s report shows that our ability to compete worldwide in agricultural products will be harmed.
Success! The Monsanto Protection Act Has Been Repealed—This Time for Good!
Thanks to the activism of the American citizens, the controversial provision was removed from the government funding bill that was signed into law last week. The bill, which passed both the House and the Senate on October 16, was a triumph of citizen involvement. The provision, which stripped federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of potentially hazardous genetically engineered crops, is now history.
Will New FDA Regulations Put Organic Farms Out Of Business?
The FDA’s new food safety rules are threatening to put organic small farmers out of business, while protecting Big Ag. Your action is needed to let the FDA know that this is unacceptable!
Over 85 Scientists Release Statement: No Consensus on GMO Safety!
There is no scientific consensus that genetically modified foods and crops are safe, according to a statement released by an international group of over 85 scientists, academics and physicians. The statement comes in response to recent claims from the GM industry and some scientists and commentators that there is a “scientific consensus” that GM foods and crops are safe for human and animal health and the environment. The newly released statement calls such claims “misleading” and states, “The claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist.” Decisions on the future of our food and agriculture should not be based on misleading and misrepresentative claims that a “scientific consensus” exists on GMO safety.
U.S. Farmer with Contaminated Fields Wants to Protect Growers from GMO Seeds
An Eastern Washington farmer says he has no idea how genetically engineered alfalfa started growing in his fields. "I want to protect other farmers," Peila, who farms near the town of Royal City, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday in explaining why he is coming forward to tell his story.
Mexico Bans GMO Corn
A federal judge has ordered Mexico’s SAGARPA (Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca, y Alimentación), which is Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, and SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales), which is equivalent of the EPA, to immediately “suspend all activities involving the planting of transgenic corn in the country and end the granting of permission for experimental and pilot commercial plantings.” The unprecedented ban was granted by the Twelfth Federal District Court for Civil Matters of Mexico City. Judge Jaime Eduardo Verdugo J. wrote the opinion and cited “the risk of imminent harm to the environment” as the basis for the decision. The judge’s ruling also ruled that multinationals like Monsanto and Pioneer are banned from the release of transgenic maize in the Mexican countryside” as long as collective action lawsuits initiated by citizens, farmers, scientists, and civil society organizations are working their way through the judicial system.
Toxicology Expert Speaks Out About Roundup and GMOs
There are NO peer-reviewed scientific papers establishing the safety of GMO crops. There are, however, both clinical and peer-reviewed scientific papers showing the hazards of GMO crops, including harmful secondary effects. Epidemiological patterns show there’s an identical rise in over 30 human diseases alongside our increased usage of glyphosate and the increased prevalence of genetically engineered proteins in our food. Glyphosate is not “just” an herbicide. It was originally patented as a mineral chelator. It immobilizes nutrients, making them unavailable for your body. It’s also patented as a potent antibiotic that can devastate human gut bacteria. The EPA recently doubled the amount of glyphosate allowed in food. Soybean oil is now allowed to contain a whopping 4,000 times the limit at which it can impact your health.
CDC Reveals Disturbing Truth about Factory Farms and Superbugs
Agricultural usage accounts for about 80 percent of all antibiotic use in the US, so it's a MAJOR source of human antibiotic consumption. According to a new CDC report, antibiotics used in livestock plays a role in antibiotic resistance and “should be phased out”; 22 percent of antibiotic-resistant illness in humans is in fact linked to food. MRSA infection has been rapidly increasing among people outside hospital settings as well. Increasing evidence points to factory-scale hog facilities as a source. Previous research suggests you have a 50/50 chance of buying meat tainted with drug-resistant bacteria when you buy meat from your local grocery store. Excessive exposure to antibiotics—which includes regularly eating antibiotic-laced CAFO meats—also takes a heavy toll on your gastrointestinal health. This in turn can predispose you to virtually any disease.
GE Seed Monopoly – Fewer Choices, Higher Prices
The introduction of genetically engineered (GE) crops has corresponded with increasing monopolization of seed by biotechnology companies and higher seed costs. This has led to tragedies in some countries, while pushing out conventional, non-GE seeds and reducing farmer seed choices. Four companies now control 40 percent of the seed market, and the problem is particularly bad in the U.S. with the government subsidized corn and soybean seed markets.
High-Performance Agriculture Can Increase Your Garden Yield Eight-Fold
Taking care of the soil through high-performance farming can increase yields and turn food into medicine.