Rady Ananda - Another Way To Kill US Farmers...

Monsanto’s Food and Drug Administration can’t close down small dairies and private food clubs fast enough, bursting on the scene with guns drawn as if the criminalized right to contract for natural foods we’ve consumed for millennia deserves SWAT attention.

Now, Obama has the Dept. of Justice going after small farmers under the post-911 "Bank Secrecy Act" which makes it a crime to deposit less than $10,000 when you earned more than that. "The level we deposited was what it was and it was about the same every week," Randy Sowers told Frederick News. The Sowers own and run South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, Maryland.

Admittedly, when the Sowers earned over $10,000 in February, and learned they’d have to fill out paperwork at the bank for such large deposits, they simply rolled the deposits over to keep them below the none-of-your-f@$!ng-business amount, rather than waste time on bureaucratic red tape aimed at flagging terrorism or other illegal activities.

Read More:

http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/04/23/obama-seizes-farmers-money/

Ronnie Cummins - Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives

For nearly two decades, Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have exercised near-dictatorial control over American agriculture, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and regulatory agencies, supermarket chains, giant food processors, and the so-called “natural” products industry.

Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry’s contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We’re fighting back.

This November, in a food fight that will largely determine the future of what we eat and what we grow, Monsanto will face its greatest challenge to date: a statewide citizens’ ballot initiative that will give Californians the opportunity to vote for their right to know whether the food they buy is contaminated with GMOs.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/millions-against-monsanto-food-fight-our-lives-1334324632

Frances Moore Lappe - Cheerleading for Monsanto? The Shocking Lack of Difference Between Oxford University Press and Fox News

Eighteen months ago I read a book that changed my life. Yeah, yeah, I know... sounds corny. But it's not what you think. This book changed my life not because of what it said but because of what it didn't say.

On a nothing-special summer afternoon in 2010, I sat in the Cambridge Public Library preparing a speech on something I'd been studying for decades. I plugged "world hunger" into the library's computer. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know popped up.

Perfect, I thought. I knew I would have differences with the book because I'd just read a critique of the views of its author, Robert Paarlberg, by my daughter Anna Lappé on the Foreign Policy website. But I'm always eager to know how those with whom I disagree make their case. Noticing that Food Politics was published by Oxford University Press, I felt confident I could count on it being a credibly argued and sourced counterpoint.

So I began reading.

"I couldn't believe my eyes" doesn't do justice to the shock I experienced.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154923/cheerleading_for_monsanto_the_shocking_lack_of_difference_between_oxford_university_press_and_fox_news

Supreme Court to Rule on Monsanto Ruling

The US Supreme Court is set to rule on a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in which that court ruled that the doctrine of exhaustion did not cover second-generation genetically altered crops. To make sense of this, a little background may be in order.

In 1994, Monsanto obtained a patent covering a line of "Roundup Ready" crops genetically altered to resist Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The modification is hereditary, which is to say that 2nd-generation (and subsequent generation) seeds inherit this resistance. To avoid buying new seeds from Monsanto next year, farmers had merely to save some of this year's crop and plant it next year. Monsanto defended against this possibility by forcing purchasers to sign an agreement promising not to replant n-generation seeds: no signature, no beans. However, farmers remained free to sell their crops on the open commodity market; almost all such crops feed either people or livestock.

So far, so good (at least for Monsanto, if not the farmers). However, upon occasion success can bite you in the ass. Monsanto's superbeans quickly dominated the market (94% of all acres in Indiana, for example). And therein lies the rub. Monsanto seeds were so dominant that all a farmer had to do was buy a bunch of commodity soybeans, and most or all of them would be Roundup Ready, not to mention significantly cheaper than the official beans sold by Monsanto.

Read More:

http://artfulopinions.blogspot.com/2012/04/supreme-court-to-rule-on-monsanto.html

Ken Roseboro - Scientist says biotech companies encouraging GMO-herbicide treadmill

The dramatic rise of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is leading biotechnology companies to develop more genetically modified crops that are tolerant to older, more toxic herbicides such as 2,4-D and Dicamba.

In a paper published recently in BioScience, David Mortensen, professor of weed ecology at Penn State, and fellow researchers criticized this “single tactic” approach of herbicide-tolerant GM crops to control weeds. The paper says the approach will dramatically increase herbicide use and threaten environmental quality, create even more herbicide resistant “superweeds,” and encourage continued neglect of public research and extension investment in integrated weed management approaches in favor of chemical company profit-driven GMO approaches.

In 2010, Mortensen told a US House Oversight Committee that the government should restrict the use of herbicide-tolerant GM crops and impose a tax on GM seeds to fund research and educational programs for farmers.

Ken Roseboro, editor of The Organic & Non-GMO Report, recently interviewed Mortensen.

What were the key findings of your paper published in BioScience?

Read More:

http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/april2012/scientist-biotech-gmo-herbicide.php

Monsanto and Big Tobacco Blamed for Birth Defects

Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides, causing "devastating birth defects" in their children, dozens of workers claim in court.

The farmers, on their own behalf and for their injured children, sued Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf Tobacco, Universal Corporation fka Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Monsanto, and their affiliates and Argentine subsidiaries, in New Castle County Court.
    
The farmers grow tobacco on small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell it to U.S. tobacco distributors. Most of Argentina's tobacco is grown in Misiones, a rural northeastern province.
    
The farmers claim the tobacco companies asked them to use herbicides, pesticides and other toxic products made distributed by Monsanto, and assured them the products were safe.

Read More:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/10/45469.htm

Josette Dunn - GM soy linked to birth defects, cancer: new study

Monsanto's herbicide Roundup used on genetically manipulated (GM) Roundup Ready crops is linked to human cell death, birth defects, cancer and miscarriages, says a report released at the European Parliament by an international group of scientists.

The report comes at a crucial time for Australia, where a popular infant soy formula has tested positive to unlabelled GM soy and corn, and Roundup Ready canola and cotton are grown.

The report, “GM Soy: Sustainable? Responsible?”, highlights new research by Argentine government scientist Professor Andrés Carrasco and an international coalition of scientists. They found serious health impacts from Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, other chemicals in the formulated herbicide and its breakdown products. The report also provides a global overview of scientific papers and other documents on the impacts of GM soy production. The new research is published in the American Chemical Society journal ‘Chemical Research in Toxicology’.

Read More:

http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2010/10/06/gm-soy-linked-to-birth-defects-cancer-new-study.html

Monsanto EU GM Maize Plans Undermined by Damning US Report

A review by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) [1] describes Monsanto’s insect resistance monitoring strategy for Bt maize in the US Midwest as “inadequate and likely to miss early resistance events”. It also highlights how the crop itself may be causing the problem and how a failure to enforce mitigation measures, like refuges and rotations, is making it worse.

The review confirms that in Iowa and Illinois a major pest of maize, the western corn rootworm, has developed resistance to the toxic Cry3Bb1 protein present in Monsanto’s MON863 and MON88017 Bt maizes. It goes on to report “severe efficacy issues for Monsanto’s Cry3Bb1 trait” in Minnesota and Nebraska.

Monsanto has applied for authorization to grow MON88017 in the European Union. GM Freeze published a review of insect resistance in Bt crops earlier this year [2] and is releasing today a critique of the European Food Safety Authority’s support for approval of EU cultivation of MON88017. [3]

Read More:

http://www.gmfreeze.org/news-releases/173/

Damaging Effects of Roundup (and its active ingredient glyphosate)

Glyphosate was patented by Monsanto as the active ingredient in their Roundup brand. Monsanto also introduced genetically modified (GM) “Roundup Ready” (RR) soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa—all designed to withstand Roundup’s normally deadly effect. Glyphosate by itself is only mildly toxic to plants and doesn’t usually destroy weeds directly. As a broad-spectrum chelator,1, it binds with nutrients, 

depriving plants of the minerals needed to help them defend against disease. At the same time, glyphosate can stimulate disease-creating organisms in the soil such as fusarium, which then wipe out the weakened 

plants. Glyphosate also remains in tact in the soil for months or years, and can even be found in the manure of chickens fed RR grains

Glyphosate was patented by Monsanto as the active ingredient in their Roundup brand. Monsanto also introduced genetically modified (GM) “Roundup Ready” (RR) soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa—all designed to withstand Roundup’s normally deadly effect.Glyphosate by itself is only mildly toxic to plants and doesn’t usually destroy weeds directly. As a broad-spectrum chelator,1  it binds with nutrients, depriving plants of the minerals needed to help them defend against disease. At the same time, glyphosate can stimulate disease-creating organisms in the soil such as fusarium, which then wipe out the weakened plants. Glyphosate also remains in tact in the soil for months or years, and can even be found in the manure of chickens fed RR grains

Read More:

http://responsibletechnology.org/docs/damaging-effects-of-roundup.pdf

Monsanto's Roundup triggers over 40 plant diseases and endangers human and animal health

The following article reveals the devastating and unprecedented impact that Monsanto's Roundup herbicide is having on the health of our soil, plants, animals, and human population. On top of this perfect storm, the USDA now wants to approve Roundup Ready alfalfa, which will exacerbate this calamity. Please tell USDA Secretary Vilsack not to approve Monsanto's alfalfa today.

While visiting a seed corn dealer's demonstration plots in Iowa last fall, Dr. Don Huber walked passed a soybean field and noticed a distinct line separating severely diseased yellowing soybeans on the right from healthy green plants on the left (see photo). The yellow section was suffering from Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), a serious plant disease that ravaged the Midwest in 2009 and '10, driving down yields and profits. Something had caused that area of soybeans to be highly susceptible and Don had a good idea what it was.

Don Huber spent 35 years as a plant pathologist at Purdue University and knows a lot about what causes green plants to turn yellow and die prematurely. He asked the seed dealer why the SDS was so severe in the one area of the field and not the other. "Did you plant something there last year that wasn't planted in the rest of the field?" he asked. Sure enough, precisely where the severe SDS was, the dealer had grown alfalfa, which he later killed off at the end of the season by spraying a glyphosate-based herbicide (such as Roundup). The healthy part of the field, on the other hand, had been planted to sweet corn and hadn't received glyphosate.

Read More:

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/blog/664