PEOPLE OF THE CORN WILLING TO DIE OPPOSING GMO MAIZE

Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 by Common Dreams

Peasant Leaders Stage Hunger Strike Against Genetically Modified Corn

Planting of genetically modified corn would be 'coup de grace to food sovereignty for the Mexican people.'

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Photo: Archivo de ProyectosThe fight against genetically modified crops continues Wednesday as peasant leaders embark on a hunger strike and sit-in in Mexico City demanding their country be gmo-free, and slamming the economic model that favors multinational corporations over food sovereignty.
The National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA), a network of Mexican farming organizations that advocates for small farmers’ livelihoods and rights, organized the protest ahead of the likely authorization of 2.4 million hectares (six million acres) to be planted with genetically modified (gm) corn by agricultural behemoths Monsanto, DuPont and Dow in Mexico.
In a letter explaining the day's actions, the group writes:

We want to reach the hearts and minds of the people of Mexico and the World to share our grave concern for the health, culture and economy of our nation, eroded by a development model that only benefits a tiny minority, a minority which includes the transnational corporations that today conspire to appropriate for themselves one of the greatest heritages of our peoples: MAIZE. [...]
[W]e demand that the Mexican government place the interests of peasants and the majority of Mexican farmers above the interests of a few transnational corporations.

"We demand that the Mexican government place the interests of peasants and the majority of Mexican farmers above the interests of a few transnational corporations."UNORCA's Maize Manifesto, addressed to the government and people of Mexico, states that the pending approval of gm corn cultivation "presents immense dangers to human health, biodiversity, culture and to our national sovereignty."
And Mexico's Maize Defense Network has referred to the planting of gm corn as 

[...] a historic crime against the people of corn, against biodiversity and against food sovereignty, against ten thousand years of peasant and indigenous agriculture that left the legacy of this seed for the good of all the people of the world.

Explaining the critical role of indigenous corn in Mexico, Aleira Lara, is Campaign Coordinator for Sustainable Agriculture at Greenpeace Mexico, writes:

Mexico is the birthplace of corn, what is known as the "centre of origin" where the original genetic pool of worldwide corn is preserved and should be protected from genetic contamination.
Why?
It's like a genetic storehouse. If current corn varieties planted on a large scale around the world were affected by a fatal disease, it is essential to be able to go back to the centre of origin and find a variety resistant to that disease. There are risks to our food security if planting of GE corn in Mexico goes ahead. If Mexico is contaminated with GE corn, and if it reduces the existing biodiversity of corn, it might limit our ability to find a suitable replacement.

"Commercial planting of GMO maize ... would essentially be the coup de grace to food sovereignty for the Mexican people."The Manifesto continues, in part:

Giving out permits for the commercial planting of GMO maize would be an attack on the constitutional right to food of the Mexican people, making it ever more unlikely the majority of the Mexican population could have access to healthy, high quality food, and it would essentially be the coup de grace to food sovereignty for the Mexican people.
The key to increasing food production in the countryside, reducing poverty and ending hunger does not lie with GMOs. This is an extremely costly technology, which does not increase yields, causes more dependence on imported seeds and farm chemicals, and provides no advantage to confronting the challenges of climate change and its effects, like frosts and droughts. This is in addition to the fact that Mexico’s agro-food crisis is not of technological origin but rather is a product of an economic model, where hunger is not a result of scarcity but rather of lack of adequate income to access food.
In our country there are more than 60 native races and thousands of local varieties of maize, which instead of representing some kind of risk, carry important virtues thanks to their selection and adaptation by indigenous peoples over more than seven thousand years. Some of these native varieties offer higher yields than the ones manipulated by Monsanto. The imposition of transnational frankenseeds would mean an end to this richness and the loss of the ancestral milpa tradition as a sustainable system of maize production and symbol of the Mesoamerican cultural inheritance.

Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/23-5

STOP FOOD WASTE -OVER 40% OF FOOD IS WASTED GLOBALLY - AND SAVE MONEY

 Various ways to save money and food 

Related Links

• UN Zero Hunger Challenge

• Love Food Hate Waste Initiative

• SAVE FOOD Initiative

Simple actions by consumers and food retailers can dramatically cut the 1.3 billion tonnes of food lost or wasted each year and help shape a sustainable future, according to a new global campaign to cut food waste launched today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners.

Many people think of food waste as a benign substance. It rots down in the landfill anyway, so no problem, right?

Wrong! For food to compost properly, it needs light and air. In the landfill, it has neither. Instead, food devoid of light and air produces methane gas, which contributes to global warming. It is estimated that we throw away a third of the food we buy each week!

Through poor portion control or buying too much fresh food that goes off before we use it we create a lot of waste.
Follow these top ten tips to reduce your “foodprint” and food bill! (contributions by NRDC and WRAP UK)

1. Shop Smart—plan meals, use shopping lists and avoid impulse buys. Don’t succumb to marketing tricks that lead you to buy more food than you need, particularly for perishable items. Though these may be less expensive per ounce, they can be more expensive overall if much of that food is discarded.
2. Buy Funny Fruit—many fruits and vegetables are thrown out because their size, shape, or color are not “right”. Buying these perfectly good funny fruit, at the farmer’s market or elsewhere, utilizes food that might otherwise go to waste.
3. Undertand Expiration Dates— in the US, “sell-by” and “use-by” dates are not federally regulated and do not indicate safety, except on certain baby foods. Rather, they are manufacturer suggestions for peak quality. Most foods can be safely consumed well after their use-by dates.
   
   In the UK, “best before” dates are also generally manufacturer suggestions for peak quality. Likewise, most foods can be safely consumed well after these dates. The important date is  “use-by”: eat food by that date or check if you can freeze it.
4. Zero Down Your Fridge—eat food that is already in your fridge before buying more or making something new, which will save time and money. Follow storage guidance to keep food at its best. Websites such as www.lovefoodhatewaste.com can help you get creative with recipes to use up anything that might go bad soon.
5. Say Freeze and Use Your Freezer—frozen foods remain safe indefinitely. Freeze fresh produce and leftovers if you won’t have the chance to eat them before they go bad. You can also do this with take-away or delivered food, if you know you will not feel like eating it the next day.
6. Request Smaller Portions—restaurants will often provide half-portions upon request at reduced prices.
7. Compost—composting food scraps can reduce climate impact while also recycling nutrients.
8. Use FIFO (First in First Out) as a kitchen rule. Check your pantry. Cook and eat first what you bought first. Store newly bought canned goods at the back of the cabinet. Keep older ones in front for easy access.
9. Love Leftovers --tonight’s leftover chicken roast can be part of tomorrow’s sandwich. Diced older bread can become croutons. Be creative! Ask your restaurant to pack up your extras so you can eat them later. Freeze them if you don't want to eat immediately. Very few of us take leftovers home from restaurants. Don’t be embarrassed to do so!
10. Donate—non-perishable and unspoiled perishable food can be donated to local food banks, soup kitchens, pantries and shelters. Local and national programs frequently offer free pick-up and provide reusable containers to donors.

© 2013 Think.Eat.Save
Source:  http://www.thinkeatsave.org/index.php/take-action/find-out-how

A BILLION STARVING PEOPLE: GREAT FOR GOLDMAN SACHS AND WALL STREET FOOD SPECULATORS

Published on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 by Common Dreams

Goldman Sach's Food Speculation Turns Global Hunger Into Wall Street Profit

Financial giant makes $400 million as high-risk commodity trading pushes already fragile food system to breaking point

- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

As the world's most vulnerable populations succumb to surging global food prices—driven in part by drought, climate change, and a global food system increasingly vulnerable to the whims of commodity speculation—Goldman Sachs has managed to turn the poverty and suffering of others into profits for itself.
Farmer Darren Becker sifts through arid topsoil under a ruined crop on the family farm on August 24 in Logan, Kansas. (Getty) Pulling in more than $400 million in profits last year through risky and damaging food speculation practices, the Wall Street financial titan has once again profited from others' misfortune, The Independent reports Tuesday.
According to an analysis conducted for The Independent by the World Development Movement (WDM), 2012 investment practices in the "soft commodities" trade (e.g. wheat and maize) by financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, drove prices to unprecedented highs while bank profits increased and banker bonuses were handed out readily.
"While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fueling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No 1 culprit."
Goldman's food speculation contributed to a roughly 68 per cent jump in profits for 2012, The Independent reports, while it increased the average pay and bonus package of its bankers to nearly $396,500.
Christine Haigh of the WDM stated: "While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fueling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No. 1 culprit."
The Independent explains:

Goldman makes its "food speculation" revenues by setting up and managing commodity funds that invest money from pension funds, insurance companies and wealthy individuals in return for fees and commissions. The firm invented these kinds of funds and continues to dominate the market, together with Barclays and Morgan Stanley. Swiss trading giant Glencore hit the headlines in August when its head of agriculture proclaimed that the US drought will be "good for Glencore".
The extent of Goldman's food speculation can be revealed after the UN warned that the world could face a major hunger crisis in 2013, after failed harvests in the US and Ukraine. Food prices surged last summer, with cereal prices hitting a record high in September.

As the global food crisis has worsened due to extreme weather brought on by global climate change, Rob Nash, Oxfam's private sector adviser, says the group is increasingly alarmed by financial food speculation.
"Especially in the light of increasingly extreme weather conditions which can reduce supply suddenly and severely deplete stocks," he said, the last thing the world's poor need is for that "volatility to be exacerbated by speculation and exploited for short-term profit."
Source:   http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/22-5

HELL IS FREEZING OVER- GMO'S BANNED FROM APPROVAL IN EUROPE...FOR NOW

EU freezes approval of GM crops to 2014    From: AAP         

• January 23, 2013 5:16AM      

THE European Commission has decided to freeze the approval process for genetically modified food crops through the end of its mandate next year while it works towards an agreement with EU member states.

"The Commission, if it wants, could launch a procedure to authorise the farming of one GM soya and six corn strains... but it won't do so," said Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.
"The authorisations for farming are frozen," he added.
Vincent said the priority of Borg, who only recently took up the post of health commissioner, was to relaunch discussions with member states.
The Commission's approval of GM crops has poisoned relations with a number of the 27 EU members.
Eight countries - Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland - have adopted provisions that allow them to block the cultivation of GM crops on their territory.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has not forced the countries to lift their safeguards.
In 14 years, the EU has approved the cultivation of just two types of genetically altered food crops for humans, the Amflora potato developed by German group BASF and MON810 maize developed by global seeds giant Monsanto.
The Amflora potato was a commercial flop, while the renewal of the authorisation of MON810 has been dragging along since 2007.
Vincent said renewal of MON810 was being held up by the Commission's freeze.
However the MON810 can continue to be cultivated in states which allow it until the Commission takes a decision.
Some 50 different genetically modified crops for animal consumption have been approved for use in the EU.
Source:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/eu-freezes-approval-of-gm-crops-to-2014/story-fn3dxix6-1226559682222

FRANKENFISH - HOW CAN THEY BE SAFE?

Is Genetically Engineered Salmon Safe?

       

Ocean Robbins

Author, Speaker, www.foodrevolution.org

Posted: 01/21/2013 8:01 pm

Frankenfish could be on your dinner plate by the end of the year.
On December 21, at the very end of the last business day before Christmas week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly released its environmental assessment that found "no significant impact" from the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage transgenic salmon. We're now in a 60 day comment period that ends on February 25, at which time the FDA is widely expected to initiate formal approval.
What is the rationale behind genetically engineered salmon? Why have scientists spliced genes from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout into the genome of the Atlantic salmon? These genes crank out growth hormone year-round, resulting in a fish that grows faster, cutting the time to reach market weight almost in half. This could mean cost savings for fish farmers, leading to higher profits for the salmon farming industry and (they promise) lower prices for consumers.
But there are massively disturbing ethical, environmental, and health concerns that make the introduction of Frankenfish highly controversial.
Corporations Given the Power to Create Life
Humans have been using natural selection for years to favor certain genetic expressions in animals and plants. But natural selection on the farm is entirely different than taking genes from two or more completely different creatures, and splicing them together in a laboratory.
Some people are concerned that the power to create new life now sits in the hands of corporate interests. Others are disturbed by the notion of eating genetically engineered animals when there isn't even so much as a label to give them choice in the matter.
With countless more genetically engineered animal creations waiting for approval, the release of genetically engineered salmon could lead to a plethora of new life forms coming onto the market. John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution and many other best-sellers about food, health and the environment, calls this "Pandora's Pantry."
Impact on Oceans and Wild Salmon
AquaBounty, the company behind the first Frankenfish, insists that their creation poses no threat to wild salmon populations. But research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations.
AquaBounty insists that their fish will be raised in controlled pens and will never be released into the ocean, and that besides, their fish will be sterile. But every year, millions of farmed fish escape from fish farms into the wild. It's true that initial introduction of AquaBounty's fish is slated for Panama in highly controlled pens. But AquaBounty is planning to market the eggs, not the fish. Once the production of GE fish becomes commercialized, it will be impossible to control the whereabouts of every single individual and assure compliance with appropriate containment measures. Some degree of release may be inevitable.
As to sterile fish, at present, there is no guaranteed method to produce 100% sterility. In fact, the FDA's most recent study found that five percent of the animals were in fact fertile. If large numbers of fish escape, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that some fertile fish might not only survive in the wild, but thrive. Because AquaAdvantage fish grow many times faster, and become mature much more quickly, than wild salmon, they may have the ability to outcompete wild salmon for food, and to reproduce at a much faster rate.
By stipulating that AquaBounty's fish will never by produced in the United States, the company was able to avoid having to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would analyze what would happen if things don't go as planned. So long as the fish are only produced in countries with relatively lax environmental laws, they may be able to get away without further study.
But if the fish escape into the wild, they won't stop swimming at national borders. This means that if they survive in the wild anywhere, they may soon be driving wild salmon into oblivion everywhere. The impact on marine and freshwater ecosystems, and on the economic wellbeing of fish-dependent coastal communities, could be devastating.
The FDA chose to review AquAdvantage as an animal drug, rather than a human food. In the FDA's view, the refashioned DNA that is in every cell of the fish's body is considered a drug, and that's what the agency is regulating. If approved, the AquAdvantage salmon would not only be the first GE animal approved for human consumption, but also the first animal drug that's theoretically capable of swimming off into the ocean and reproducing.
Is It Safe to Eat?
The FDA concluded the salmon to be "as safe as food from conventional (farmed) Atlantic salmon." While this might be debatable, considering that the genetic makeup of the fish is a new creation, and there have been no long-term studies conducted on humans actually consuming genetically engineered salmon, let's suppose for the moment that the FDA's conclusion is accurate.
Is being as safe as conventional farmed salmon such a great thing? Salmon has been widely touted for its prevalence of Omega 3 essential fatty acids. And it's true that wild salmon has low levels of many of the contaminants found in other fish. But farmed Atlantic salmon is an entirely different matter.
Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group comments: "Nearly all (farmed) salmon (that) Americans eat are grown in dense-packed pens near ocean shores, fed fish meal that can be polluted with toxic PCB chemicals, awash in excrement flushed out to sea and infused with antibiotics to combat unsanitary conditions."
Many medical experts are already recommending reducing farmed salmon consumption to one serving per month or less. Compared to wild salmon, studies have found farmed salmon to have significantly higher concentrations of contaminants, including such lovely substances as PCBs, dioxins, dieldrin, and toxaphene.
If AquaAdvantage does come to market on a large scale, and if it does reduce the cost of farmed salmon, thus making it more widely available and more affordable, is this really a boon to a hungry world? Or might it be a recipe for even more cancer and environmental pollution?
What You Can Do Tell the FDA what you think: If you are disturbed by the prospect of a solid green light being given to sale of genetically engineered salmon in the United States, now is a great time to speak up. The FDA's comment period lasts until February 25. You can submit comments online, or sign petitions like this one.
Take action for labeling: Genetically engineered crops are already unlabeled, inadequately tested, and present in an estimated 75% of the foods in America's restaurants and supermarket shelves. Surveys have found that as much as ninety-three percent of the American public supports the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Perhaps the prospect of genetically altered animals pouring onto American dinner plates without labeling will tip us over the edge from concern into action. To support labeling, sign the Food Revolution Network and Care2's petition to Congress, or the Just Label It Campaign's petition to the FDA.
Protect yourself and your family: You can get a non-GMO shopping guide and mobile app that can help you and your family avoid genetically engineered foods if you want to do so. And the Food Revolution Network offers a complimentary no-GMO action pack.
Ocean Robbins is founder and co-host (with best-selling author John Robbins) of the 90,000 member Food Revolution Network, an initiative to help you heal your body, and your world... with food. Find out more and sign up for free at foodrevolution.org.
Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ocean-robbins/is-genetically-engineered_b_2522547.html