GMO DOCS MISSING - LAWSUIT SEEKING ACCESS

Huge: New Lawsuit Filed

 Against USDA over

Missing Docs Showing

 GMO Dangers

by Christina Sarich  March 14, 2014

Like many Americans, you may be beating your head against the wall trying to figure out how governmental agencies could so blatantly ignore the facts concerning GMO dangers. A new lawsuit filed March 12, 2014 by Center for Food Safety (CFS) demands that federal documents be released which might incriminate the United States Department of Agriculture over findings that GMO were harmful, while shielding the public from this knowledge. The complaint is filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and can be viewed in full, here.

The lawsuit attests that political pressure was asserted on the FDA to approve genetically engineered alfalfa. It seeks 1179 documents from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) which explain why the agency reversed its original decision to deny GMOs, specifically RoundUp Ready Alfalfa, being promoted by Monsanto. The Director of CFS, Andrew Kimbrell, states:

 “USDA determined Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa posed significant environmental and economics harms and initially proposed placing restrictions on it. Yet the agency went ahead and granted full unrestricted approval one month later. Did the White House intervene? Did Monsanto pressure the agency? The fact is we don’t know, and unless the court orders USDA to hand over these documents we may never know,”

Monsanto permission to sell their poison alfalfa under the name RoundUp Ready. The very next year, CFS, along with a coalition of farmers, challenged the approval. And even though Monsanto tried to intervene, courts sided with the Center for Food Safety. APHIS was ordered to complete a thorough analysis of the GMO crop’s impacts on farmers and the environment before making a decision.

Read: Letter Reveals Monsanto Planted GMOs Before USDA Approval

Sadly, Monsanto got its way after appealing the decision at the Supreme Court level, even though the APHIS report showed significant damage to agronomics and the environment at large. The report recommended restrictions of this Monsanto crop.

In January of 2011, APHIS reversed its decision in favor of Monsanto, seemingly ignoring all the data they had uncovered showing that GMO alfalfa was not good for the environment, farmers, or consumers. They even stated that they ‘had no choice’ but to grant unrestricted approval. Alternative media then questioned the abrupt reversal, raising questions of undue influence.

 “APHIS’s sudden change of heart on the approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa has led to the contamination of organic and conventional alfalfa to the detriment of U.S. farmers, and threatens the health of our environment and the survival of sensitive species,” said Sylvia Wu, attorney for Center for Food Safety. “The public deserves an explanation from the agency. APHIS cannot be allowed to disregard the public’s right to access governmental records guaranteed by the Freedom of Information Act.” 

While it isn’t corn, wheat, or soy, alfalfa is the fourth most commonly grown GMO crop in the US. It is grown in every US state and asserts huge economic outcomes on farmers who grow it. Data now shows that 90% of all alfalfa grown in the US is covered in Round Up Ready chemicals.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/huge-new-lawsuit-just-filed-usda-ignoring-gmo-environmental-health-harms/#ixzz2vxXQeVWC

EAT YOUR GENOCIDE? NEUROTOXIN - AGENT ORANGE 2,4-D RESISTANT G.E. SEEDS APPROVED - FOR FOOD CROPS ALL OVER USA

Published on Wednesday, March 12, 2014 by Common Dreams

Voices Blast Dow Chemical's 'Agent Orange' Seed Warfare

Pending approval of the GE Seeds, Dow prepares to roll out seed-herbicide combination package, spelling 'catastrophe' for farms and farmers

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

(Image: Center for Food Safety)As the final public comment period wrapped up on Tuesday for the approval of Dow Agrosciences' new genetically engineered and herbicide-resistant seeds, hundreds of thousands of people are demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture halt the "chemical arms race" that is poisoning our people and planet.

Dubbed "Enlist," the corn and soybean seeds are resistant to the toxic herbicide, 2,4-D—a known neurotoxin that was part of the cocktail of chemicals used in Agent Orange spray.

According to food safety group Food & Water Watch, over 387,000 people responded to the USDA's draft Environmental Impact Statement. Individuals who submitted comments voiced their personal concerns with the seeds as they urged the agency to reject their approval.

"This poison chemical company has the ruthless, malicious, heartless audacity to make such a request to have their poison, 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange to be applied to their so-called GMO food crops," wrote Lori Nakamura-Higa, the neice of a Vietnam veteran that suffered from Agent Orange poisoning, from Kaneohe, Hawaii. "I [am] reminded daily of the loss of quality of life trying to persevere with this plaguing struggle."

"This chemical arms race with weeds means more pesticidal pollution, environmental damage, and higher production costs," said Gary Rost, of Falon Heights, Minn. "[A]pproving this crop would take us backwards, seriously endangering human health and the environment."

"You have a duty to protect the health and safety of the public. Dow's applications are clear dangers and represent a violation of public policy," wrote Ken Mason, Wilmette, Ill.

"Why in the world would we want to approve 2,4-D resistant corn and soybeans when Roundup resistant corn and soybeans have failed to do anything except to increase the use of pesticides?" asked Jean Bixley, Cambridge, Minn. "Pesticides are not healthy for anyone, and the government should be looking at ways to reduce or eliminate their usage, not increase it."

"Big agriculture and chemical companies are not honest about the risks and someday we will all pay the price for their greed." —Kevin Peroni, Denver, Colo.

"For once, do what is best for the American people instead of what big corporations are paying you to do. This could be catastrophic to public health," said Rachel Wood, Hudsonville, Mich.

"We must stop poisoning our food with chemicals that are unsafe for our health and our environment," wrote Kevin Peroni, from Denver, Colo. "Big agriculture and chemical companies are not honest about the risks and someday we will all pay the price for their greed."

Though the public comment period has ended, the Center for Food Safety is sponsoring a petition calling on the White House to stop approval of the GE seeds.

As the USDA itself has conceded, approval of the GE seeds would lead to a "200 to 600 percent increase" in the agricultural use of 2,4-D by 2020. The chemical has been linked to Parkinson's, birth defects, reproductive problems, and endocrine disruption.

"With all these risks, why are chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto formulating seeds to be resistant to this decades-old chemical with a terrible health track record?"asks Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet and co-founder of the The Small Planet Institute.

Answering her own question, Lappé explains how the introduction of herbicide-resistant seeds further boosts sales of those herbicides, and thus more profits. "The real motivation behind the introduction of those products is Monsanto’s and Dow’s bottom lines," she writes.

Earlier this week, Reuters published an in-depth piece on Dow's projected growth pending approval of these GE seeds. Dubbed their "most important release," according to Dan Kittle, Dow Agrosciences Vice President of Research and Design, the company anticipates they will double their roughly $7 billion in annual revenues over the next five to seven years.

The "key to Dow's rise in the agriculture seed and chemical kingdom," according to Reuters, is the joint packaging of their "new GMO seed and herbicide combination branded the 'Enlist Weed Control System.'"

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

SOURCE:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/12-4

AGROECOLOGICAL RADICALS - AT THE U.N. - CALL FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY (AGAIN AND AGAIN)

Published on Monday, March 10, 2014 by Common Dreams

UN Report Calls for Radical, Democratic Food System

Complete reversal, not reform, of global food system needed in favor of sustainable food sovereignty

- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

Photo via Flickr / desfilhesjm / Creative Commons LicenseThe current global food system needs to be "radically" and "democratically" changed in order to alleviate global hunger and serve human rights over the profits of major agribusiness corporations, according to a report released Monday by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

“At the local, national and international levels, the policy environment must urgently accommodate alternative, democratically-mandated visions” which go beyond the goal of profit maximization and instead rebuild local and sustainable food models, said Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter, while presenting his final report (pdf) to the UN Human Rights Council, finalizing his six-year term.

“Food democracy must start from the bottom-up, at the level of villages, regions, cities, and municipalities,” the rights expert said.

“Food security must be built around securing the ability of smallholder farmers to thrive,” he emphasized. “Respect for their access to productive resources is key in this regard."

The current system, says De Schutter, has instead created a world monopolized by the big-agro "green revolution" of mono-cropping, industrialization and pesticide-heavy techniques, which has boosted agricultural production over the past 50 years but has "hardly reduced the number of hungry people," the report states.

This system of large-scale export-based agriculture is most often "based on the exploitation of a largely dis-empowered workforce," the report states, "operated at the expense of family farms producing food crops for local consumption" that cannot keep up with corporate competitors.

This has resulted in a "paradoxical situation in which many low-income countries, though they are typically agriculture-based, raw commodity-exporting economies, are highly dependent on food imports," the report states, "sometimes supplemented by food aid, because they have neglected to invest in local production and food processing to feed their own communities."

This industrialized system has also led to a major loss in biodiversity, soil erosion, mass pollution, and a rise in man-made greenhouse gas emissions—"the most potentially devastating impacts of industrial modes of agricultural production," the report states.

Under these conditions, and particularly with the onset of climate change, agricultural productivity will only decrease sharply over time, De Schutter warns.

According to De Schutter, an "eradication of hunger and malnutrition" is an achievable goal only if we completely reverse the current logic of our food system to a system which depends on democratic decision-making led by the people—or as food justice campaigners put it: Food Sovereignty.

“National right to food strategies should be co-designed by relevant stakeholders, in particular the groups most affected by hunger and malnutrition, and they should be supported by independent monitoring," stated De Schutter.

De Schutter continued:

Objectives such as supplying diverse, culturally-acceptable foods to communities, supporting smallholders, sustaining soil and water resources, and raising food security within particularly vulnerable areas, must not be crowded out by the one-dimensional quest to produce more food. [...]

The greatest deficit in the food economy is the democratic one. By harnessing people’s knowledge and building their needs and preferences into the design of ambitious food policies at every level, we would arrive at food systems that are built to endure.

The report offers as an alternative a system which enables local, autonomous food production alongside international trade that would incorporate "agroecological" modes of production. Agroecology includes techniques such as "intercropping, the recycling of manure and food scraps into fertilizers, and agroforestry...that reduce the use of external inputs and maximize resource efficiency."

The report explains:

Because agroecology reduces the cost of farming by minimizing the use of expensive inputs, it improves the livelihoods of farming households, particularly the poorest households. And it supports rural development: because it is knowledge-intensive and generally more labor-intensive, it creates employment opportunities in rural areas.

Though easier to implement on smaller-sized farms, agroecological techniques can be disseminated on a large scale and should also inspire reforms in how large production units operate.

Other objectives include reducing meat production in favor of crops grown for human consumption and a reduction in biofuel use—both of which have "represented a major source of price volatility on agricultural markets" over the years.

In response to the report, Martin Drago, Friends of the Earth Food Sovereignty Program Co-coordinator, stated, “This report is the only recipe for the eradication of hunger. Its recommendations are bold and simple: our current food systems must be reversed, not just reformed.”

“The report's recommendations clearly state that Food Sovereignty is needed to eradicate hunger as well as to democratize our food systems," said Drago. "The report also recognizes Food Sovereignty as an essential condition to be fulfilled in order to fully realize the right to food."

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Source:   http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/10-7

HAWAII GE FOOD TASK FORCE AND VARIOUS BILLS

Hawaii modified food bills battered but alive

By SAM EIFLING
Associated Press

Published: Thursday, Mar. 6, 2014 - 5:12 pm

Last Modified: Thursday, Mar. 6, 2014 - 7:37 pm

HONOLULU -- The chairwoman of the Hawaii House Agriculture Committee said Thursday she intends to fight for a bill that would establish a task force to study genetically modified foods.

But Democratic Rep. Jessica Wooley said she thinks SB 2454 doesn't include enough meaningful regulation. She says she would like to see labeling of genetically modified foods because many people want to know whether their groceries include those ingredients.

"What is a task force going to tell us?" said Wooley, who represents Koolaupoko. "Whether it's safe or not safe? I've seen all sides, and it's clear we shouldn't be telling people you can't grow GMO (genetically modified organisms).

"But we have a current problem, which is, the consumers don't have a right to know," she said.

As contentious as its debate in Hawaii has been, Wooley said, simply labeling genetically modified foods as such would deflate tension around the issue.

The task force measure has already passed the Senate. Wooley said her House committee will take it up. The committee can offer changes to the bill.

A bill (HB 174) that would require labeling of genetically modified foods passed the House last year but has since been ignored in the Senate. A Senate measure (SB 2521) that would require labeling of genetically modified food and seeds made its way only partway through committee. It then languished, and was never sent to the Senate floor for a vote.

One major Senate obstacle to genetically modified food labeling is Wooley's counterpart there: Sen. Clarence Nishihara, the Agriculture Committee chairman. His committee this year declined to consider a Senate measure (SB 3084) that would have required retailers to label genetically modified food.

Nishihara, who represents Ewa, said he opposes state measures to label genetically modified foods because they could jack up the price of imported food and run afoul of federal regulations, exposing the state to potential lawsuits.

"If you had food that were to come from the mainland, you'd have to say that they make a special label just for Hawaii," he said. "We didn't think that was going to be workable. If it raised the cost of food because of labeling, then the consumer would pay it."

The result, Nishihara said, would be higher prices and fewer choices at grocery stores in a state already pinched by high food prices.

Any move to require labeling would also have to withstand the strong possibility of a lawsuit. In testimony last year on HB 174, Wade Hargrove III, the deputy in the state attorney general office who handles food and drug regulation, identified three areas in which that bill as written would be vulnerable to litigation.

He said the measure risked overstepping existing federal regulations on genetically modified foods, running afoul of interstate commerce law by requiring labels only on imported foods, and inviting a challenge on First Amendment grounds by requiring labels for a feature of foods that the federal government deems safe for consumption without consumer warnings such as those on, for example, alcohol.

His role is merely one of a legal adviser to lawmakers, Wade said, and predicting possible constitutional law conflicts is an inexact science. "We are readers of tea leaves," he said Thursday. He has offered no testimony yet on 2014 bills, but said those areas should still be considered likely avenues by which a company or individual could challenge any future labeling proposals.

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Sam Eifling can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sameifling.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/06/6215970/hope-remains-for-gmo-regulation.html#storylink=cpy

MARCH 10 VOTE URGES BUCHWALD TO VOTE 'YES' on 2014 NYS GE FOOD LABELING BILL A3525/S3835

Key Vote in Albany Tomorrow on Genetically Engineered Food Labels

Groups Call on Assemblyman Blumenthal to Support GMO Labeling

YONKERS, N.Y., March 7, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, headquartered in Yonkers, today called on Assemblyman David Buchwald of White Plains and Mt Kisco to vote yes for Right To Know Bill A. 3525 when it comes before the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee tomorrow. This bill would require labeling of genetically engineered foods (also known as GMOs) sold in New York State and ensure New Yorker's right to know what is in their food.

A broad coalition of consumer and environmental groups, including the New York Public Interest Group (NYPIRG), Sierra Club, Consumers Union, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Northeast Organic Farming Association NY, Food and Water Watch, and GMO Free NY  support the bill. The committee vote scheduled for Tuesday, March 10 is critical to passage.

"Consumers have a basic right to know what they are eating," stated Michael Hansen, Ph.D., senior scientist at Consumers Union. "Unlike most other developed countries, the US FDA does not require either safety testing or labeling before genetically engineered foods go on the market.  New York's GE labeling bill can change that, and Assemblyman Buchwald has a chance to move this important bill on to the next step of the legislative process," Hansen said.

Currently 64 countries require genetically modified foods to be labeled, including all European countries, Australia, and Japan. Polls have shown that US consumers overwhelmingly support their right to know what is in their food.

Dr Hansen states, "GE food is fundamentally different from non-GE foods. Labeling is important because it allows the consumer to report allergic or other adverse reactions to regulators or to simply exercise their consumer choice when at the checkout. Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports is calling on Assemblyman Buchwald to vote yes on A. 3525."

MARCH 2014Consumers Union is the public policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports. Consumers Union works for health reform, food and product safety, financial reform, and other consumer issues in Washington, D.C., the states, and in the marketplace. Consumer Reports is the world's largest independent product-testing organization. Using its more than 50 labs, auto test center, and survey research center, the nonprofit rates thousands of products and services annually. Founded in 1936, Consumer Reports has over 8 million subscribers to its magazine, website, and other publications. 

SOURCE Consumers Union

BAN OR LABEL GE FOODS - DRIVE THEM OFF THE MARKET - RONNIE CUMMINS

GMOs: Ban Them or Label Them?

• By Ronnie Cummins 
  Organic Consumers Association, March 6, 2014 
  

For Related Articles and More Information, Please Visit OCA's Genetic Engineering Page, and our Millions Against Monsanto Page.

Since the controversial introduction in the mid-nineties of genetically engineered (GE) food and crops, and the subsequent fast-tracking of those crops by the federal government—with no independent safety-testing or labeling required—there has been a lively debate among activists, both inside and outside the U.S., about how to drive these unhealthy and environmentally destructive “Frankenfoods” off the market. 

Some campaigners have called for an outright ban of GE crops. In fact, several dozen nations, thousands of local governments in the EU, and six counties in the U.S. (in California, Washington and Hawaii) have created GMO-free zones by passing bans.

Other activists argue that strict mandatory labeling laws, similar to those in the EU, are all we need in order to rid the world of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Activists in this camp point out that very few products in countries that have mandatory GMO labeling laws contain GMOs, because once companies are required to label GMO ingredients, they reformulate their products to be GMO-free, rather than risk rejection by consumers. 

Who’s right? 

A review of two decades of anti-GMO campaigning in North America and Europe suggests that mandatory labeling and bans, or GMO-free zones, should be seen as complementary, rather than contradictory. And recent news about increased contamination of non-GMO crops by the growing number of USDA-approved GMO crops suggests that if we don’t implement labeling laws and bans sooner rather than later, we may run out of time to preserve organic and non-GMO farmers and their fields. 

Bans and Mandatory Labeling Laws: Lessons from the EU

In the EU in the late-1990s, in what was the largest agricultural market in the world, anti-GMO campaigners, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, at first tried to establish a sweeping production and import ban on all GMOs. They were unsuccessful, largely because politicians and bureaucrats argued that an outright ban of GMOs in the EU would violate World Trade Organization agreements and bring on serious economic retaliation from the U.S. government. 

Leading consumer, environmental and farm groups pushing for a ban were successful, however, in forcing EU authorities to adopt significant GMO safety-testing regulations.  All GMOs, under EU law, are considered "novel foods" and are subject to extensive, case-by-case, science-based food evaluation by European regulatory officials. These regulations, much to the chagrin of Monsanto and the Gene Giants, have kept most GMOs, with the exception of animal feeds, out of the country. 
EU regulations also permit member nations to establish GMO-free zones.  As of 2012 there are 169 regions and 4,713 municipalities that have declared themselves GMO-free zones in the EU. In addition to these GMO-free zones in the EU, at least 26 nations, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico, and Russia have banned GMOs entirely. Significant labeling and safety-testing procedures on GMOs have been put in place in approximately 60 countries. 

Mandatory Labeling in the EU: The Crucial Blow to GMOs 

Although EU grassroots forces failed to gain a continent-wide ban on the cultivation or import of GMOs, they were successful in pushing authorities to impose mandatory labeling of all genetically engineered foods, feeds and food ingredients in 1997. This, combined with strict pre-market safety-testing regulations, has marginalized or eliminated GMOs throughout the EU.

EU foods derived from animals raised on GMO feed, however—meat, eggs, and dairy products—do not have to be labeled in the EU. As a consequence, billions of dollars of GMO-tainted animal feeds, including corn, soybeans and canola, continue to be imported every year into the EU from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina. EU activists, in Germany and elsewhere, have now begun campaigning to eliminate this strategic loophole.

As the EU’s GMO food labeling law came into effect in 1997-98, activists switched gears, successfully pressuring many large supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Co-Op, Tesco, Waitrose  and Marks & Spencer, and food manufacturers, including Unilever and Nestlé, to pledge to remain GMO-free. Feeling the heat from grassroots campaigners and realizing that mandatory GMO labeling would be the “kiss of death” for their brand-name products and their reputations, every major EU supermarket, food manufacturing and restaurant chain, including U.S.-based multinationals such as General Mills, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Walmart, eliminated GMOs from their supply chains. As a consequence almost no GMO-derived foods, with the exception of meat and animal products, have been sold in EU retail stores or restaurants from 1997 until now.

With no real market for GMOs, EU farmers have refused to grow them. EU activists point out that if meat, eggs and dairy products derived from animals fed GMO grains had to be labeled, there would be no GMOs in Europe. Period. 

Frankenfoods Fight Heats Up in the U.S.  

In the U.S., the battle against GE foods and crops has been markedly more difficult. Since 1994, government regulatory agencies have refused to require labels on GMOs, or to require independent safety testing beyond the obviously biased research carried out by Monsanto and other genetic engineering companies themselves.

Despite government and industry opposition, and limited funding, a growing number of pro-organic and anti-GMO campaigners carried out a variety of public education, marketplace pressure and boycotts between 1994 and 2012 designed to either ban or label GMOs. Although GMO labeling bills, which according to numerous polls are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, were introduced in Congress over and over again during the past two decades, none have gathered more than nominal support from lawmakers And media coverage, at least until the California GMO labeling ballot initiative in 2012 (Proposition 37) and the Washington State ballot initiative in 2013 (I-522), has been generally sparse, with reporters routinely spouting industry propaganda that GMOs are safe, environmentally sustainable and necessary to feed a growing global population. 

But the tide is beginning to turn. More farmers are rejecting GMO seeds, more consumers are demanding non-GMO foods, or at the least, labels on GMO foods. And the media is beginning to give the anti-GMO movement if not its fair share, at least substantially more ink than we’ve seen in decades.

Farmers Sound the Alarm about GMO Contamination

Between 1994-2012, the number of acres in the U.S. planted in GMO crops has grown significantly. Today, 169 million acres—almost half of all cultivated U.S. farmlands—are now growing GMO crops. 

But despite the proliferation of GMO crops, we’re now seeing increased demand for non-GMO seeds. This is partly because farmers are growing frustrated with having to buy more and more pesticides and herbicides for GMO crops, as weeds and pests grow increasingly resistant to products like Monsanto’s Roundup.

But it’s also because organic and non-GMO farmers are speaking out about contamination of their crops by nearby GMO crops. Just this week, a new survey published by Food & Water Watch revealed that a third of U.S. organic farmers report problems with contamination from nearby GMO crops, and over half of the farmers surveyed said they’ve had grain shipments rejected because of contamination. 

Consumers Demand non-GMO

Increasing demand for non-GMO crops also stems from consumers’ heightened concerns about health, which in turn is increasing demand for non-GMO and organic crops and foods. The turning point in the anti-GMO Movement in the U.S. came in 2012-13 when organic and anti-GE organizations, led by the Organic Consumers Association, Food Democracy Now, Center for Food Safety, Alliance for Natural Health and others, joined by a number of organic and natural health companies including Mercola.com, Dr. Bronner’s Soaps, Nature’s Path, Lundberg Family Farms, Natural News, and Nutiva, decided to bypass the federal government and launch high-profile, multi-million dollar state ballot initiative campaigns for mandatory labeling of GMOs in California and Washington State. 

Although anti-GMO campaigners narrowly lost 51%-49% in both states, large genetic engineering and food corporations were forced to spend over $70 million ($12 million of which was illegally laundered by the Grocery Manufacturers Association in Washington). In addition GMA members, most of whom are high-profile food manufacturers, seriously damaged their brands and reputations by carrying out a misleading, dirty tricks advertising campaign that flooded the airwaves in California and Washington and antagonized millions of consumers—many of whom began boycotting their products and assailing their Facebook pages.  

By 2012, thanks to the massive media coverage of the California GMO labeling initiative, organic foods and products reached $35 billion in sales, representing almost 5 percent of all grocery store sales, with non-GMO “natural” food sales reaching another $15 billion.

This growth in sales has not gone unnoticed by food manufacturers and retailers. Although 75-80 percent of all non-organic processed foods contain GMOs, General Mills, Kraft General Foods, Chipotle, Ben and Jerry’s and Whole Foods Market, responding to public concern and marketplace pressure, are now moving to eliminate GMOs from some or all of their brand name products.

Push for GMO Labeling Laws Continues

In the meantime, grassroots activists continue to push for mandatory labeling laws. In 2012-13, they lobbied legislators in 30 states, achieving partial success in Maine and Connecticut. In 2014 Vermont, Oregon and several others states appear poised to pass GMO labeling laws, while voters in five Oregon and California counties will attempt to pass GMO bans.

Frantically trying to head off the inevitable, the GMA and a powerful coalition of genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, restaurant, supermarket and junk food manufacturers have begun lobbying Congress to take away states’ rights to pass laws requiring GMO food labels. The GMA has also lobbied the FDA and Congress to allow the obviously fraudulent, though routine, industry practice of labeling or marketing GE-tainted foods as “natural.”

At the state level the GE Lobby, Big Food and the Farm Bureau are sponsoring bills to take away the right of counties and municipalities to pass laws banning GMOs or restricting hazardous industrial agriculture practices. 

On the international front, genetic engineering, pharmaceutical and Big Food companies are attempting to subvert GMO labels or bans by “fast-tracking,” with no public input or discussion, transnational trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). These so-called Free Trade agreements would allow multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer and Dupont to sue local, state or even national governments that interfere with their profits, by passing laws regulating or banning GMOs or other controversial agricultural practices.

Although these profoundly pro-corporate and anti-consumer and anti-environmental trade agreements in theory can stop GMO labeling laws and bans from coming into effect, in political terms they are perceived by the majority of the body politic and even many state and local officials as highly authoritarian and anti-democratic. Similarly TPP and TAFTA are correctly perceived by many national political, environmental and labor leaders as undermining national sovereignty, sustainability and economic justice.

Why Both Labeling and Bans Are Necessary

Once GMOs foods are labeled, informed consumers will move to protect themselves and their families by not buying them. Once enough consumers shun GMO-tainted and labeled foods, stores will stop selling them and food manufacturers will stop putting GMO food ingredients in their products. However as the EU experience shows, labeling must eventually be comprehensive, with a requirement for meat, eggs and dairy products to be labeled if the animals have been fed GMO feed.

But food labeling alone cannot protect the environment, or non-GMO and organic farmers from GE drift and seed contamination. This is why county and regional bans on GMO cultivation and the creation of regional GMO-free zones are important. More than 80 percent of farmers surveyed by Food & Water Watch said they were “concerned” about contamination, while 60 percent said they were “very concerned.” Farmers said a lax U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been excessively influenced by the biotech industry. 

The Food & Water Watch report comes just as the USDA has extended its public comment period on “coexistence”between GMO and non-GMO agriculture.

In the U.S. the largest food fight in history will soon intensify. Throwing gasoline on the fire, GE companies are arrogantly and foolhardily attempting to introduce genetically engineered fish, apples and “Agent Orange” (2,4 D) herbicide-resistant corn and soy on the market, just at the time when human health and environmental concerns are escalating. These new Frankenfoods and crops will survive in the marketplace only if there are no mandatory labeling laws and no legitimate safety testing. 

But this “no labels” scenario is unlikely to continue. State legislative battles in Vermont, Oregon, and other states will likely reach critical mass in 2014, forcing industry and the federal government to finally adopt EU-type regulations and practices on GMOs. Once labeling is in place (including labels on meat, fish dairy, and eggs) genetic engineering companies, led by Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF will have no choice but to abandon GMOs and gene-splicing, in favor of less controversial hybrid seed/cross-breeding practices (which do not require labels) such as “marker assisted breeding.”

If industry and government on the other hand dig in their heels, stomping on consumer, state, municipal and community rights, telling us to “shut up and eat your Frankenfoods,” America’s food revolution may turn into a full-scale rebellion. 

America’s organic consumers and natural health advocates invite you to join us in this decisive battle to drive GMOs off the market and make the great transition to healthy and sustainable food and farming. Click here to 
make a donation to this cause, the Food Fight of Our Lives.


Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association.

CFS AND EARTHJUSTICE STAND UP TO BIG AG DEFENDING KAUAI FROM CHLORPYRIFOS POISON AG SPRAYS

Paul Achitoff

Managing Attorney, Mid-Pacific Office of Earthjustice

GMOs in Kauai: Not Just Another Day in Paradise

Posted: 03/05/2014 12:32 pm EST Updated: 03/05/2014 12:59 pm EST

Each year 1.3 million people reluctantly leave the small and spectacularly beautiful island of Kauai after vacations and visits. But there are 68,000 people on this planet who don't have to leave because they are lucky enough to call Kauai home.

Many Kauai locals have been outraged to discover that their island paradise is also home to a proliferating genetically engineered crop industry that is dousing the Garden Isle with extremely toxic chemical pesticides.

When students at Waimea Canyon Middle School complained of headaches, nausea, disorientation, itchy eyes, and dizziness, their families knew something was very wrong, and that the State wasn't doing much to help. They may not have realized a chemical pesticide, which was developed during World War II as a nerve gas, had drifted into the school from nearby crop fields. Between 2010 and 2012, the University of Hawaii tested air samples in and around the school and found this chemical -- chlorpyrifos, the active ingredient of many pesticides -- every time.

What's not surprising is that these pesticides are remarkably efficient at killing insects. On humans, they act by disrupting the body's transmission of nerve impulses, essentially driving the nervous system haywire. In addition to acute poisonings, peer-reviewed studies have linked low-level exposures of this chemical to birth defects such as small head circumference, stunted brain growth, autism, lower IQs, and memory problems in children. About a week ago, the peer-reviewed journal Lancet Neurologypublished a study that adds chlorpyrifos to a list of known developmental neurotoxins. Earthjustice went to court to force the Environmental Protection Agency to assess chlorpyrifos' health risks, and EPA has promised to respond imminently to our plea to ban this pesticide to protect kids from brain impairments and communities from poisonous drift.

According to the latest figures for pesticide use supplied by the chemical companies themselves as a part of their "Good Neighbor" policy, chlorpyrifos is the chemical that they use the most on their genetically engineered crops on Kauai. In the short period from mid-December 2013 to mid-January 2014 alone, Syngenta, DuPont Pioneer, and BASF Plant Science used a total of over 341 pounds of a chlorpyrifos pesticide, and Dow AgroSciences applied another 174 pounds of another pesticide containing chlorpyrifos. Data previously obtained from DuPont Pioneer showed that from 2007 to 2013, it applied chlorpyrifos pesticides to its fields on Kauai alone over 2,400 times -- on average, about once every single day. The frequency with which these companies spray their experimental and seed-production crops exceeds typical conventional farming pesticide use to an extraordinary degree.

The EPA is well aware of the dangers of chlorpyrifos to children. Because of the documented dangers, beginning in 2000, chlorpyrifos was cancelled for homeowner use inside the home and on lawns and gardens due to risks to children. But the EPA did not address the risks posed to children who live or go to school nearby fields where the chemical is sprayed. And chlorpyrifos is prone to drift, meaning Kaua'i's breezes easily carry this toxic, nasty stuff into the classrooms and homes of the island's children and their families. When that perfect Kaua'i sun warms the island air, thechemical evaporates off the genetically engineered crops and blows into the wind, wafting into schoolyards, playgrounds, and backyards, further increasing children's exposure.

For many on the island, this is an unacceptable reality that must not be tolerated. They knew they wanted to protect their island from this chemical warfare, even without hearing stories about schoolchildren being poisoned in Ventura, California or kids breathing in this pesticide's fumes in schoolyards in Washington's apple and grape growing regions. That's why the Kauai County Council last year passed an ordinance requiring modest buffer zones around schools, hospitals and homes, and disclosure so people can try to avoid exposure.

These chemical companies are now suing Kauai County for the right not only to keep spraying this and other pesticides near these sensitive areas, but to do so in secrecy. The law specifically requires the disclosure of pesticide and GE crops used on the island and establishes buffer zones around sensitive locations like schools and hospitals. The chemical industry's challenge to these common-sense safeguards is beyond shameful.

Speaking of shame, in 2003, Dow agreed to pay $2 million -- reportedly the largest penalty ever in a pesticide case -- to the state of New York, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General to end Dow's illegal advertising of one of its chlorpyrifos-containing pesticides as "safe."

To defend the interests of Kauai's residents who are at risk from the likes of these chemical corporate powers, Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety, on behalf of community groups, have moved to intervene to defend the lawsuit. If we prevail in defending and upholding Kauai law, the island's children will be safer and healthier. And for many island parents -- like parents everywhere -- a healthy family is all the paradise they need.

This post originally appeared on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-achitoff/gmos-in-kauai-not-just-an_b_4899491.html