Monsanto Now Owns Your Garden

The issue here is not whether GMO food is safe to eat.  The issue is for-profit corporations having control of our food supply.

For more than ten thousand years, human beings have grown food by saving seeds from the harvest to plant next year.  As long as we can grow food this way, we can survive.

But now Monsanto and other giant agriculture corporations are destroying subsistence agriculture.  No more growing food unless you pay Monsanto for seeds you have to buy again every year.

And because you commie hippies might object to losing control over your own food supply, Monsanto is making sure you can't say anything about it.

Mother Jones:

With little notice, more than two dozen state legislatures have passed “seed-preemption laws” designed to block counties and cities from adopting their own rules on the use of seeds, including bans on GMOs. Opponents say that there’s nothing more fundamental than a seed, and that now, in many parts of the country, decisions about what can be grown have been taken out of local control and put solely in the hands of the state.

“This bill should be viewed for what it is — a gag order on public debate,” says Kristina Hubbard, director of advocacy and communications at the Organic Seed Alliance, a national advocacy group, and a resident of Montana, which along with Texas passed a seed-preemption bill this year. “This thinly disguised attack on local democracy can be easily traced to out-of-state, corporate interests that want to quash local autonomy.”

Seed-preemption laws are part of a spate of legislative initiatives by industrial agriculture, including ag-gag laws passed in several states that legally prohibit outsiders from photographing farms, and “right-to-farm” laws that make it easier to snuff out complaints about animal welfare. The seed laws, critics say, are a related thrust meant to protect the interests of agro-chemical companies.

SNIP

Organic farmers can lose their crop if it becomes contaminated with genetically modified material. Even conventional farmers who rely on exports to Asia, where GMOs are banned by some countries, face risks from contamination. There are currently no plans to push for a GMO ban anywhere in Texas or Montana, and neither state requires companies to disclose the use of GMOs. (In Montana, at least, Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, added an amendment to the preemption bill when he signed it, preserving the right of local governments to require that farmers notify their neighbors if they’re planting GMO seeds.) Yet critics of the preemption laws fear that they tie the hands of local governments, which will make it harder for communities to respond to problems in the future. 

Still, the fight isn’t just about GMOs, says Judith McGeary, noting that seeds coated with neonicotinoids — a class of pesticides linked to colony collapse disorder in bees — are also at issue. Under the Texas bill, a local government can’t ban neonic seeds in order to protect pollinator insects, and in the current political climate, it’s hard to imagine that such a ban would happen on the state level.

“We have an extremely large state with an incredible diversity of agricultural practices and ecological conditions, and you’ve now hobbled any ability to address a problem that’s found in one local area,” says McGeary. “Until it’s a big enough issue for a state of 23 million to pay attention to through the state legislature, nothing is going to happen,” she says.

KY's Congress Repugs Voted to Hide Altered Food From You

The real issue here is not food safety, but food supply.  GMO crops are corporate possessions; farmers cannot save seeds for next year's crop, but must buy new seeds every year from Monsanto.  GMO put one of the planet's most toxic and despicable corporations in control of the entire world's food supply.

Regardless of whether genetically-modified organisms in food are dangerous to human health, they are absolutely lethal to the food supply and the ability of farmers to maintain sustainable crops.

But four of Kentucky's six representatives don't give a flying fuck about that.

Only Democrat John Yarmuth of Louisville and repug/teabagger Thomas Massie of Northern Kentucky voted to prevent Monsanto from sneaking unlabeled GMOs into our food.

Repugs Ed Whitfield, Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers and Andy Barr all voted to take control of the nation's food supply away from farmers and consumers and give it to giant corporations.

Down with Tyranny:

This is a relatively simple issue. Food activists want to see potentially dangerous GMO food labeled so that consumers can make up their own minds about whether or not to feed it to their families. Monsanto and the GMO-Republicans, led by the Koch brother's Mike Pompeo (R-KS), want to make sure that there is no labeling and that the states that have already passed labeling laws to protect their citizens-- Connecticut, Maine and Vermont-- are over-ruled. I guess the concepts of states' rights and small government are trumped in GOP minds when their Big Business allies squawk loud enough! The bill passed (last week) 275-150. 

GMOs Don't Work

As I have written before, my objection to GMOs has to do with destroying the food supply through hybrid seeds that farmers must buy every year instead of being able to propagate from their own harvest.

Not to mention the extreme danger of putting the future and safety of our food supply in the hands of giant corporations - many of which like Monsanto are proven criminals - which can then literally hold the planet hostage.

Those objections would stand even if GMOs actually worked the way they are advertised.

They don't.

Lauren McCauley at Firedoglake:

The biotechnology industry “myth” that feeding billions of people necessitates genetically engineered agriculture has been debunked by a new report out Tuesday by the nonprofit health organization Environmental Working Group.

The report, Feeding the World Without GMOs (pdf), argues that investment in genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, has failed to expand global food security. It advocates more traditional methods “shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production.”

Over the past 20 years, the report notes, global crop yields have only grown by 20 percent—despite the massive investment in biotechnology.

On the other hand, it continues, in recent decades “the dominant source of yield improvements has been traditional crossbreeding, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.”

As the report states, “seed companies’ investment in improving yields in already high-yielding areas does little to improve food security; it mainly helps line the pockets of seed and chemical companies, large-scale growers and producers of corn ethanol.”

Yep, Roundup Causes Cancer. Monsanto is Literally Killing Your Children

Thinking about getting rid of those spring weeds in your yard before they get well-established? Go with plain white vinegar.

Think Progress:

The most popular weed-killer in the United States — and possibly the world — “probably” causes cancer, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Published Thursday in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the report focuses on a chemical called glyphosate, invented by Monsanto back in 1974 as a broad-spectrum herbicide. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, a popular product used mostly in commercial agriculture production. Roundup is particularly good for genetically modified crops, which can be bred to resist damage from the product while it kills the weeds surrounding it.

In the U.S., glyphosate is not considered carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency’s current position is that “there is inadequate evidence to state whether or not glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer from a lifetime exposure in drinking water.” In the wake of Thursday’s report, however, the EPA said it “would consider” the U.N. agency’s findings.

The new report, crafted by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), puts glyphosate at the second-highest level of the agency’s classifications for cancer. There are four classifications for things that could cause cancer: known carcinogens, probable or possible carcinogens, not classifiable, and probably not carcinogenic. It noted that glyphosate has been detected in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, indicating that it is absorbed by the human body.

The next week,  EPA announced it would regulate glyphosphate.  That doesn't mean Roundup is safe; it means the EPA will spend the next 20 years writing rules that will reduce the amount of glyphosphate in Roundup to the exact amount that is still lethal to children and other living things, but is cut enough to give Monsanto justification to piss and moan and bitch about Big Gubmint killing free enterprise and JERBS.

And the week after that:

An employee of Monsanto admitted there is a department to discredit any scientist opposed to them.

 The Roundup Hit Squad.

Get Your Seeds From Coops, Not Corporations

It's getting harder every year to find seeds that are not genetically modified to put real farmers out of business and turn a giant profit for Monsanto.

But in some countries, farmers are doing it for themselves.

Truthout:

In the face of overwhelming competition skewed by the rules of free trade, farmers in El Salvador have managed to beat the agricultural giants like Monsanto and Dupont to supply local corn seed to thousands of family farmers. Local seed has consistently outperformed the transnational product, and farmers helped develop El Salvador’s own domestic seed supply–all while outsmarting the heavy hand of free trade.

 Here in the States, try Seed Savers to find untreated, heirloom, non-GMO seeds.

Beating Monsanto

Corporations are close - very close - to establishing the Lords-n-serfs economy that will give them unchecked power.  But they're not there yet.

And it is possible for even the most marginalized people to stop them.

Truthout:

Farmers across El Salvador united to block a stipulation in a US aid package to their country that would have indirectly required the purchase of Monsanto genetically modified (GM) seeds.

Thousands of farmers, like 45-year-old farmer Juan Joaquin Luna Vides, prefer to source their seeds locally, and not to use Monsanto's GM seeds.

"Transnational companies have been known to provide expired seeds that they weren’t able to distribute elsewhere," said Vides, who heads the Diversified Production program at the Mangrove Association, a community development organization that works in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador.

"We would like the US embassy and the misinformed media outlets [that are pressuring the Salvadoran government to change their procurement procedure] to know more about the reality of national producers and recognize the food sovereignty of the country," he added.

Big Ag might not win.  But only if we fight them every step of the way.

Buy Your Groceries in Vermont

Remember, the issue is not just lack of safety - which has yet to be proven - but the catastrophe of letting one giant corporation own the basis of the entire planet's food supply.

They couldn't make it happen in California, but ....

From Firedoglake:

- It seems Vermont will be the first state in the nation requiring GMO labeling on all foods

Chile Protects World Food Supply From Corporate Greed

Expect the full weight of multi-national corporations and their obedient governments to fall on the rebellious nation immediately.

This month, rural women, indigenous communities, and farmers in Chile found themselves on the winning end of a long-fought battle against a bill that had come to be known by many in this country as simply, the “Monsanto Law.”

The bill, which would have given multinational agribusiness corporations the right to patent seeds they discover, develop or modify, was withdrawn by the Chilean government now controlled by newly elected members of the center-left coalition known as the New Majority, amid concerns that the law would bring harm to the country’s small and mid-sized farmers.

This isn't about patent law or the free market or any of the other lies corporations use to cover up their real agenda.

This is about the ability of human beings to grow the food we need to survive. Allowing corporations to patent seeds - the source of all food - allows corporations to decide who lives and who dies.

What's next? Selling off corporate rights to rainwater? Do you really think there aren't law firms all over the world frantically working on that one?

Food Safety Won't Matter When Corporations Own the Source of Our Food Supply

Far be it from me to question a biologist's expertise on biology, so I will address the political problem:

GMO puts the entirety of the planet's food supply and future ability to grow food in the hands of profit-taking corporations.

Without GMO, you don't have to pay any money to anyone to grow your own food. Collect seed from open-pollinated, heirloom plants, nurture the seeds into mature plants, eat what you need, store the extra and save seeds from the rest, and do it all over again next year.

With GMO, you have to pay money - huge, unsustainable amounts of money - Monsanto to get seeds to plant to grow food.  But you can't save seeds from what you've grown, because they are hybrids or sterile.  You have to pay again for seeds next year to start all over from scratch.  And the year after that and the year after that and the year after that.

It's food slavery.  Even if I thought GMO foods were perfectly safe, cured cancer, eliminated racism and were the solution to biodiversity, drought, overpopulation, climate change and the heartbreak of psoriasis, I wouldn't eat or plant them because doing so leads to a corporation owning the source of our food supply.

PZ Myers:

I find myself continually bewildered by the argument against genetically modified food. However, we have no choice, we need to constantly improve the stocks.

We have a great deal to gain from growing GM crops. They offer humanity a way to improve food productivity without having to make further inroads into our planet’s wild places to create more fields for farmers. The position was summed up by Sir Mark Wolpert, the government chief scientist last week, when debating the CST’s report. "The challenge is to get more from existing land in a sustainable way or face the alternative, which is that people will go unfed, or we’ll have to bring more wilderness land into cultivation." From that perspective, the case for GM crops is unanswerable.

Not everyone will agree, of course. Green opponents to GM crops claim they pose a risk to health, though no research has ever produced any credible evidence to back this point. Thirty years ago, it could be argued that we should proceed cautiously because of potential health dangers. That argument is no longer acceptable.

I have a lot of sympathy for the green argument, except that it ignores the real problem to focus on a minor issue. The real problem isn’t that some of our crops carry modified genes, especially since they all do — every single one of our major food plants are the product of intense artificial selection for traits that benefit agriculture. No, the real problem is how much of our country is overwhelmed with monocultured species — most of the botanical diversity of the United States is gone under a layer of wheat and corn and soybeans and pretty much nothing else. Minnesota is 54% farmland, and we aren’t even the most intensely plowed over state in the country.

It seems to me that the green approach would be to encourage more GMOs to increase the efficiency of farmland use; and to struggle to get less land committed to agriculture by ending the corn ethanol boondoggle and by encouraging more vegetarian diets, so less livestock. Worrying about an artificially introduced gene in a crop seems silly when the real problem is that versions of that crop are taking over everything, replacing wetlands and prairie with endless fields of corn, GMO or not.

Kevin Drum, on even more food-supply-endangering problems with GMO crops: 

Even if GMO foods are safe to eat, there are a host of practices surrounding the use and marketing of GMO seeds and crops that are highly questionable. And those practices frequently fail to get the attention they deserve thanks to intense lobbying from corporate interests with billions of dollars at stake. Over at Wired, Brandon Keim provides an example of this dynamic at work. It's the story of Bt corn, which was engineered to be poisonous to corn rootworms, a pest that used to cause billions of dollars in damage to corn crops. For a while it worked great. But then, corn rootworms evolved a resistance to Bt corn, largely due to industry and farmer resistance to proper management:

Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Give Monsanto Control Over the World's Food

Throughout human history, as long as you had the tiniest patch of ground and a few seeds, you could feed yourself.

If the U.S. approves the TPP, that ends.

Ellen Brown at Counterpunch:

“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.  “Control food and you control the people.”

Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.

Profits Before Populations

Genetic engineering has made proprietary control possible over the seeds on which the world’s food supply depends. According to an Acres USA interview of plant pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, two modified traits account for practically all of the genetically modified crops grown in the world today. One involves insect resistance. The other, more disturbing modification involves insensitivity to glyphosate-based herbicides (plant-killing chemicals). Often known as Roundup after the best-selling Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate poisons everything in its path except plants genetically modified to resist it.

SNIP

Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets are now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other countries—including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia—GMOs are totally or partially banned; and significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.

A ban on GMO and glyphosate use might go far toward improving the health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade agreement for which the Obama Administration has sought Fast Track status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to the healthcare crisis.

Read the whole thing.

Monsanto Reaps Rewards for Destroying Global Food Supply

Again, regardless of the risk GMOs may or may not pose to human health, they are an immediate and lethal threat to the safety and longevity of the world's food supply, not to mention the livelihood of the world's farmers. When Monsanto and other corporate giants own every seed on the planet, only the rich will eat.

From The Nation:

The GMO wars escalated earlier this month when the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive vice president and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, responsible for development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The choice of Fraley was widely protested, with eighty-one members of the prestigious World Future Council calling it “an affront to the growing international consensus on safe, ecological farming practices that have been scientifically proven to promote nutrition and sustainability.”

Monsanto’s Man

The choice of Monsanto’s man triggered accusations of prize buying. From 1999 to 2011, Monsanto donated $380 million to the World Food Prize Foundation, in addition to a $5 million contribution in 2008 to help renovate the Hall of Laureates, a public museum honoring Norman Borlaug, the scientist who launched the Green Revolution.

For some, the award to Monsanto is actually a sign of desperation on the part of the GMO establishment, a move designed to contain the deepening controversy over the so-called biotechnological revolution in food and agriculture. The arguments of the critics are making headway. Owing to concern about the dangers and risks posed by genetically engineered organisms, many governments have instituted total or partial bans on their cultivation, importation, and field-testing.

A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had total or partial bans on GMOs. Now there are at least twenty-six, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.

Restraints on trade in GMOs based on phyto-sanitary grounds, which are allowed under the World Trade Organization, have increased. Already, American rice farmers face strict limitations on their exports to the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and are banned altogether from Russia and Bulgaria because unapproved genetically engineered rice “escaped” during open-field trials on GMO rice. Certain Thai exports—particularly canned fruit salads containing papaya to Germany, and sardines in soy oil to Greece and the Netherlands—were recently banned due to threat of contamination by GMOs.

SNIP

Unfortunately for the biotech corporations, more people are listening to the words of scientists like Dr. Oscar Zamora, vice chancellor of the University of the Philippines at Los Banos, who says: “For every application of genetic engineering in agriculture in developing countries, there are a number of less hazardous and more sustainable approaches and practices with hundreds, if not thousands, of years of safety record behind them. None of the GE applications in agriculture today are valuable enough to farmers in developing countries to make it reasonable to expose the environment, farmers and the consumers to even the slightest risk.”

Surprise Small Victory in the End-Shutdown Bill

They'll be back, of course, with even more campaign cash for cooperative congress critters, but for the moment, there's a ray of hope for those of us who value safe, available, affordable food.

Zoe Carpenter at The Nation:

Other than re-opening the government and averting a global financial crisis, one good thing about the funding bill passed last night was that it put an end to a corporate giveaway known colloquially as the Monsanto Protection Act.

Formally called the Farmer Assurance Provision, the measure undermined the Department of Agriculture’s authority to ban genetically modified crops, even if court rulings found they posed risks to human and environmental health. Republican Senator Roy Blunt worked with the genetically modified seed giant Monsanto to craft the initial rider, and it was slipped into a funding resolution that passed in March. There was concern that an agreement to end the shutdown would extend the provision, which is set to expire at the end of the month.

Jon Tester, a farmer and Democratic Senator from Montana, removed the measure from the bill yesterday. “All [the Farmer Assurance Provision] really assures is a lack of corporate liability,” Tester argued in March. “It…lets genetically-modified crops take hold across the country – even when a judge finds it violates the law.”

SNIP
  Meanwhile, Monsanto is facing at least 16 lawsuits for failing to contain genetically modified wheat, which was found growing on an Oregon farm earlier this year. Concerns about the company’s aggressive patent policies and their implications for food sovereignty are global: this summer, Chileans protested a law protecting GMO manufacturers, and activists rallied in dozens of countries this weekend as part of the second “March Against Monsanto” demonstration. 

The Fight Against Monsanto: Winning Overseas, Losing Here at Home

Remember: the danger of Monsanto's Genetically Modified Organism seeds is less to individual health (which has not been proven) than to the global food supply when expensive, single-season GMO monoculture destroys the diversity of heirloom, self-propagating seeds.

Don't get distracted by the health arguments. Concentrate on protecting the food supply.

In Europe:

Hungary has destroyed 1000+ acres of GMO corn– for the second time.  So far, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Austria and Peru have bans on GMO crops.

And the French president is maintaining the ban on Monstanto's GM Corn.

In India:

As India’s government prepares to make the controversial Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill a law, enhancing the hold that biotech companies like Monsanto have over the nation’s food production, the tiny bee may be emerging as a potential savior by offering ways to increase crop yields naturally.

Thanks to efforts by the Mumbai-based organization Under the Mango Tree, bees have been incorporated into the fields of small farmers and food growers in communities in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Through its Bees for Poverty Reduction program, UTMT is helping farmers increase their incomes and agricultural productivity through India’s indigenous honeybee Apis cerana indica.

But in the U.S., Monsanto's corruption contaminates everything from social media to elections.

Washington state agriculture officials confirmed that a farmer’s alfalfa crop was contaminated with a genetically modified trait, a “low-level” presence that nonetheless has prevented him from exporting it.

SNIP

The “mixup” points to a larger controversy brewing in Washington state over the presence of genetically modified crops, Reuters reports:

USDA and GMO proponents have said biotech and non-biotech crops can co-exist successfully. But opponents said the incident in Washington state shows that non-GMO farmers have to bear the burden and cost of any lost sales if their crops get contaminated, even at low levels.

“Co-existence is a myth,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety, which sued USDA to try to stop its approval of biotech alfalfa. “We don’t know how to control contamination. They say biotech is just another tool in the toolbox. That is not true. It’s a tool that takes over all the other tools and makes them worthless.”

The furor it’s inspired will likely influence an upcoming ballot initiative that would mandate labeling of GMO foods in the state. It’s popularly known as “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” Monsanto, along with DuPont Pioneer, have dedicated millions of dollars to defeating it.

The Solution to Everythiing?

It's very damn close to way too good to be true.  But if it is true, ExxonMobil and Monsanto will stop at nothing - up to and incuding taking over nations - to stop it.

From the Independent:

A GROUNDBREAKING new Irish technology which could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough is set to change the face of modern farming forever.

The technology – radio wave energised water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruits by up to 30 per cent.

Not only are the plants much bigger but they are largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings in expensive fertilisers and harmful pesticides.

Extensively tested in Ireland and several other countries, the inexpensive water treatment technology is now being rolled out across the world. The technology makes GM obsolete and also addresses the whole global warming fear that there is too much carbon dioxide in the air, by simply converting excess CO2 into edible plant mass.

Obviously, this puts Monsanto out of the seed-monopolizing business.  But why should ExxonMobil and the rest of the fossil fuel industry hate and fear super water? A CO2-eating substance might take the pressure off CO2-producing fossil fuels.

Answer: most oil drilled out of the earth goes not for fuel but for petroleum-based products like everything plastic and - most of all - chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.

Super water frees farming from its 70-year dependence on petroleum-based additives and deals a mortal blow to fossil fuels.

If it really works.  And if the inventors can prevent Exxon-Mobil and Monsanto from buying up the patent and either burying it or charging their usual bankrupting prices for it.

In recognition of the groundbreaking technology, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London, recently took the hitherto unheard-of step of granting Professor Austin Darragh and his team the right to use their official centuries-old coat of arms on the new technology – the first time ever that Kew Gardens has afforded anyone such an honour.

The Kew Gardens botanists were not just impressed with the research; they used the technology to restore to life a very rare orchid which had been lying dormant and practically dead in a greenhouse bell jar since 1942. Amazingly, the orchid is now flourishing once again.

Intriguingly, chickens and sheep fed the energised water turned into giants. . . but that's another story!

Limerick University off- campus company ZPM Europe Ltd, who are based in the National Technology Park, Limerick, is now manufacturing the Vi-Aqua technology.

What's GMO and What's Not

Since Monsanto and the other Big Ag corporations have prevented labeling laws, we're left to guess what we're buyin. Here's a general guide from Mother Jones.

So what are some examples of food that are genetically modified?

1. Papayas: In the 1990s, Hawaiian papaya trees were plagued by the ringspot virus which decimated nearly half the crop in the state. In 1998, scientists developed a transgenic fruit called Rainbow papaya, which is resistant to the virus. Now 77 percent of the crop grown in Hawaii is genetically engineered (GE).

2. Milk: RGBH, or recombinant bovine growth hormone, is a GE variation on a naturally occurring hormone injected into dairy cows to increase milk production. It is banned for milk destined for human consumption in the European Union, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Many milk brands that are rGBH-free label their milk as such, but as much as 40 percent of our dairy products, including ice cream and cheese, contains the hormone.

3. Corn on the cob: While 90 percent of corn grown in the United States is genetically modified, most of that crop is used for animal feed or ethanol and much of the rest ends up in processed foods. Sweet corn—the stuff that you steam or grill on the barbecue and eat on the cob—was GMO-free until last year when Monsanto rolled out its first GE harvest of sweet corn. While consumers successfully petitioned Whole Foods and Trader Joe's to not carry the variety, Walmart has begun stocking the shelves with it without any label.

4. Squash and zucchini: While the majority of squashes on the market are not GE, approximately 25,000 acres of crookneck, straightneck, and zucchinis have been bioengineered to be virus resistant.

5. "All natural" foods: Be wary of this label if you're trying to avoid GE foods. Right now there is no strict definition of what constitutes a natural food. This could be changing soon as federal court judges recently requested the Food and Drug Administration to determine whether the term can be used to describe foods containing GMOs to help resolve pending class action suits against General Mills, Campbell Soup Co., and the tortilla manufacturer Gruma Corp.

Are there any foods I've heard might be genetically modified—but actually aren't?

1. Potatoes: In 1995, Monsanto introduced genetically modified potatoes for human consumption, but after pressure from consumers, McDonald's and several other major fast food chains told their French fry suppliers to stop growing GE potatoes. The crop has since been removed from the market.

2. Seedless watermelon: While it would seem plausible that a fruit that produces no seeds has been bioengineered, the seedless watermelon is a hybrid of two separate breeds. It has been nicknamed the "mule of the watermelon world."

3. Salmon: Currently no meat, fish, or egg products are genetically engineered, though a company called Aqua Bounty has an application in with the FDA to approve its GE salmon.

4. Soy milk: While 93 percent of soy grown in the United States is genetically engineered, most major brands of soy milk are GMO-free. Silk, the best-selling soy milk brand in the country, joined the Non-GMO Project in 2010. Many popular tofu brands in the United States also sell GMO-free tofu products.*

5. Rice: A staple food for nearly half the world's population, there are currently no varieties of GM rice approved for human consumption. However, that could soon change. A genetically modified variety called golden rice being developed in the Philippines has been altered to include beta-carotene, a source of vitamin A. Backers are lauding it as a way to alleviate nutrient deficiency for the populations in developing countries.

How about organic foods?

Since the late '90s, USDA organic standards have prohibited any genetically modified ingredients. Originally, the agency tried to include GE foods under the organic umbrella, but it backed down in 2002 after a massive public outcry to save organic standards.

Lots more info at the link.

Home-grown veggies are non-GMO only if you obtain the seed from sources of heirloom and organic seeds, like Seed Savers.

It's Neither Ignorant Nor Misdirected to Oppose GMO

Last month, biologist PZ Myers, whom I greatly admire, took a shot at those who oppose Genetically Modified Organisms as unscientific woo-peddlers.

Much of the dissent with GMOs is based either on ignorance, or is misdirected.

SNIP

This strange unfounded fear of GMOs is unfortunately most strongly expressed in the political left. It’s embarrassing that political progressives are being made to look bad by raging superstition and unscientific claims.

I cut no slack for woo-peddlers or for knee-jerk attacks on modern science.  But PZ is focusing on the woo-ish anti-science tiny minority of anti-GMO activism and ignoring the much bigger fight: stopping one giant company - Monsanto - from using GMO to make all agriculture subject to corporate ownership and control.

He calls on anti-GMO-ers to engage in that fight as if there were not millions of people already engaged in global activism against Monsanto.

As for the scientific case against GMOs, here's the latest from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In the decade and a half since the agricultural biotechnology industry in the United States staged its first field trials, federal and state governments and private corporations have spent billions of dollars on research, commercial development, and regulation. This paper focuses primarily on the environmental successes and failures of that investment and the implications of that experience for U.S. readiness to deal with the next generation of agricultural biotechnology products.

SUMMARY

The American experience with genetically modified food crops, while encouraging, does not justify complacency about potential risks for several reasons. First, our experience is quite limited in important ways. Only two traits, herbicide and insect resistance, have been significant commercial successes. Crops with other traits have failed to achieve commercial success, have been held back by companies, or never made it through the research and development pipeline.

Second, the U.S. government provides very little post-market oversight of biotech foods. A recent report by the U.S.-based Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology (cited above) questions the ability of the government's weak monitoring and enforcement systems to detect unexpected human health and environmental problems and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.⁵⁹ In fact, the current "don't look, don't find" approach to monitoring is likely to detect only the most dramatic, highly visible effects.

Third, the scientific underpinnings of risk assessment and risk management are chronically and severely underfunded. Compared with the amount of U.S. taxpayer funds spent on biotech product development and related research, very little is earmarked for research on risks of engineered products. For example, in the 11-year period of 1992 to 2002, the USDA spent approximately $1.8 billion on biotechnology research and approximately $18 million on risk-related research.⁶⁰ Many features of genetically modified food crops, for example, impacts of stacked genes and unresolved issues about Bt allergenicity, raise concerns that have simply not been adequately investigated.

Fourth, the diversity promised in future products and the new, more complex issues they are likely to raise are expected to severely challenge a regulatory system already straining under the comparatively light weight of today's products. This point is made by a trio of studies produced by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The first report, Genetically Modified Pest-Protected Plants: Science and Regulation, after reviewing the risks of crops engineered to produce insecticidal toxins and evaluating the EPA's program for regulating these crops, recommended that the agency strengthen its oversight.⁶¹

Two years later, a second report focused on the USDA and its regulation of engineered crops. The Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants: the Scope and Adequacy of Regulation found serious shortcomings in the department's oversight of biotech products and recommended significant changes in its regulatory program.⁶² The report particularly noted that the USDA was ill prepared to protect against the risks of a new generation of biotech products nearing the end of the research and development pipeline.

Also in 2002, NAS published Animal Biotechnology: Science-Based Concerns, the academy's first report devoted solely to animals produced through modern biotechnology methods.⁶³ That report found that the federal government's regulatory efforts have not kept pace with the advances in animal biotechnology research. As a result, they concluded that the current framework might be inadequate to oversee new animal biotech products as they move from laboratories towards commercialization.

Finally, the scientific evidence available to date, while encouraging, does not support the conclusion that genetically modified crops are intrinsically safe for health or the environment. The next generation of products—crops engineered to produce drugs and industrial chemicals⁶⁴ and crops engineered to alter regulatory and metabolic pathways⁶⁵—offer far more numerous traits and appear to be more obviously dangerous than Bt and herbicide-tolerant crops. It would be a serious misstep to overread the positive early experience with Bt and herbicide-tolerant crops and conclude that the weak regulation currently in place will suffice to control the risks of these and other new crops.

 The attacks on GMO dissenters are the same attacks leveled at J. Robert Oppenheimer for his doubts about the safety of nuclear power, and Rachel Carson for sounding the alarm about artificial pesticides.  "Hysterical luddites! Ignore them!"

Maybe this time the GMO cheerleaders are right. I hope so. But the corporate track record on scientific dangers is one of 100 percent failure. So I doubt it.

EPA OKs Monsanto Poisoning All Your Food

From Firedoglake:

“The EPA, whose mission is . . . ‘to protect human health and the environment,’ has approved Monsanto’s request to allow levels of glyphosate (Roundup) contamination in your food up to a million times higher than have been found carcinogenic.”

Monsanto Lobbyist Setting U.S. Trade Policy

Organic food had a nice run, but it's over. All your tomatoes are belong to Monsanto.

From Firedoglake:

Trans-Pacific Partnership: “Something is looming. . . that could . . . erode our basic rights and contaminate our food . . . .. The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddiqi”

Monsanto Destroys $9 Billion U.S. Wheat Export Industry

Destroying an entire sector of the American economy. I'd say that calls for a fine. One equal to the economic value of that sector.  Times three.

From Firedoglake:

 “Unapproved genetically engineered wheat has been found growing on a farm in Oregon”, endangering wheat exports, a major blow since Oregon exports 90% of its wheat.  Update: Japan has already suspended US wheat imports.  Update: The EU is on the lookout for “Monsanto GMO strains” in US wheat imports.

The U.S. exports approximately 30 million metric tons of wheat per year, times $300 per metric ton, equals $9 billion.

Don't help Monsanto kill the rest of American agriculture.

Scroll down to the list of seed companies that have “safe” seed and those that don’t.

Roundup Found Poisonous: It's the Year to Go Organic

If you're still using pesticides and herbicides from chemical killers like Monsanto and Dow, doing business as Ortho, stop right now for the sake of your health and life.

Firedoglake:

A French court in Lyon “ruled that Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller formula . . . caused [farmer] Paul Francois to develop lifelong neurological damage”.   Compensation to be established.

And from Nation of Change:

A new review of hundreds of scientific studies surrounding glyphosate—the major component of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—sheds light on its effects within the human body. The paper describes how all of these effects could work together, and with other variables, trigger health problems in humans, including debilitating diseases like gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Glyphosate impairs the cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene pathway, which creates enzymes that help to form and also break down molecules in cells. There are myriad important CYP enzymes, including aromatase (the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen) and 21-Hydroxylase, which creates cortisol (stress hormone) and aldosterone (regulates blood pressure). One function of these CYP enzymes is also to detoxify xenobiotics, which are foreign chemicals like drugs, carcinogens or pesticides. Glyphosate inhibits these CYP enzymes, which has rippling effects throughout our body.

Because the CYP pathway is essential for normal functioning of various systems in our bodies, any small change in its expression can lead to disruptions. For example, humans exposed to glyphosate have decreased levels of the amino acid tryptophan, which is necessary for active signaling of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Suppressed serotonin levels have been associated with weight gain, depression and Alzheimer’s disease. This paper does not claim to yield new scientific discoveries. Instead, it looks at older studies in a new light. Critics will say the links between glyphosate and health problems made in this paper are purely correlational, but this work is important because it brings all of the possible health effects of glyphosate together and discusses what could happen: something the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have failed to do.

Just as Monsanto attempted to discredit scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini’s study on rats fed genetically engineered corn, the company called this peer-reviewed journal article “another bogus study” due to its “bad science.” In a classic pot-calling-the-kettle-black scenario, what Monsanto doesn’t mention is that the majority of research showing glyphosate’s safety has been done by Monsanto itself, which could be called bad science as well due to its limited and biased nature.

The authors of the new review call for more independent research to validate their findings, stating that “glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply, and contrary to being essentially nontoxic, it may in fact be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.” If the body of independent research on GE foods and the herbicides used with them shows one thing, it is that there are unanswered questions begging for unbiased research. And while these questions remain unanswered, Americans have the right to know how their food was produced.

 Going organic takes more initial time and effort, but from the very beginning it's far cheaper than using synthetic chemicals.  And after the first establishing year, it takes even less time and effort than it does money. Find out how to get started here.