Monday, January 19, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
NEW NON-REGULATED GMO CROPS APPROVED- AGAIN
Friday, January 16, 2015
by
Bowing to Monsanto, USDA Approves New GMO Soy and Cotton Crops
‘This
continues the disturbing trend of more herbicide-tolerant crop
approvals taking place under President Obama’s watch.’ — Wenonah Hauter,
Food & Water Watch
Cotton fields ready for harvest, Highway 87, south of Lubbock, Texas. (Photo: Calsidyrose/flickr/cc)
The
United States Department of Agriculture on Thursday approved Monsanto's
controversial herbicide-resistant genetically modified strains of
soybean and cotton, in a move that critics say is a bow to the powerful
biotechnology industry, at the expense of human and environmental
health.
The green-light is "simply the latest example of USDA’s allegiance to the biotechnology industry and dependence upon chemical solutions," Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter declared in a press statement. "This continues the disturbing trend of more herbicide-tolerant crop approvals taking place under President Obama’s watch."
Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of the Pesticide Action Network echoed Hauter's concerns, calling the new genetically modified crops "the latest in a slew of bad ideas" and a sign of the USDA's "allegiance to the largest pesticide corporations."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Thursday granted "nonregulated status for Monsanto Company’s (Monsanto) soybeans and cotton that are resistant to certain herbicides, including one known as dicamba." The biotechnology giant still awaits the Environmental Protection Agency's approval of the new herbicide, which contains both dicamba and glyphosate, designed to accompany the resistant strain.
But food and environmental safety advocates warn that the corresponding increase in herbicide use is dangerous to the ecosystem. As the Center for Food Safety points out, dicamba has been linked in epidemiology studies to "increased rates of cancer in farmers and birth defects in their male offspring." First approved in 1967, dicamba seeps through the environment, causing damage to crops and flowering plants and polluting waterways.
Furthermore, herbicides give rise to resistant weeds, leading the development of new herbicides, accompanied by resistant genetically engineered crop strains. Critics charge that, rather that embark on an endless cycle of pumping chemicals and genetically modified crops into the environment, fostering a "pesticide treadmill," regulators should take the long-term well-being of the ecosystem into account and change the status quo.
The USDA's green-light follows the Environmental Protection Agency's approval in October of Dow AgroSciences' herbicide Enlist Duo, which farmers and scientists warn threatens human and environmental health.
"Monsanto’s genetically-engineered dicamba-resistant crops are yet another example of how pesticide firms are taking agriculture back to the dark days of heavy, indiscriminate use of hazardous pesticides, seriously endangering human health and the environment," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety.
The green-light is "simply the latest example of USDA’s allegiance to the biotechnology industry and dependence upon chemical solutions," Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter declared in a press statement. "This continues the disturbing trend of more herbicide-tolerant crop approvals taking place under President Obama’s watch."
Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of the Pesticide Action Network echoed Hauter's concerns, calling the new genetically modified crops "the latest in a slew of bad ideas" and a sign of the USDA's "allegiance to the largest pesticide corporations."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Thursday granted "nonregulated status for Monsanto Company’s (Monsanto) soybeans and cotton that are resistant to certain herbicides, including one known as dicamba." The biotechnology giant still awaits the Environmental Protection Agency's approval of the new herbicide, which contains both dicamba and glyphosate, designed to accompany the resistant strain.
But food and environmental safety advocates warn that the corresponding increase in herbicide use is dangerous to the ecosystem. As the Center for Food Safety points out, dicamba has been linked in epidemiology studies to "increased rates of cancer in farmers and birth defects in their male offspring." First approved in 1967, dicamba seeps through the environment, causing damage to crops and flowering plants and polluting waterways.
Furthermore, herbicides give rise to resistant weeds, leading the development of new herbicides, accompanied by resistant genetically engineered crop strains. Critics charge that, rather that embark on an endless cycle of pumping chemicals and genetically modified crops into the environment, fostering a "pesticide treadmill," regulators should take the long-term well-being of the ecosystem into account and change the status quo.
The USDA's green-light follows the Environmental Protection Agency's approval in October of Dow AgroSciences' herbicide Enlist Duo, which farmers and scientists warn threatens human and environmental health.
"Monsanto’s genetically-engineered dicamba-resistant crops are yet another example of how pesticide firms are taking agriculture back to the dark days of heavy, indiscriminate use of hazardous pesticides, seriously endangering human health and the environment," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Thursday, January 15, 2015
SCOTLAND REPORT ON ROUNDUP GOES TO THE HEART
Roundup hurts hearts?
There could be as many as five million agricultural workers in the
developing world who suffer an episode of pesticide poisoning each year.
Some of these are accidental and some are, sadly, due to attempted
suicide. In these latter cases, death is strongly associated with high
blood glyphosate levels. Glyphosate is, of course, the active
ingredient of Roundup herbicide used on, and accumulated by, GM 'Roundup
Ready' crops.
Roundup intoxication commonly leads to heart malfunction. Anecdotal
evidence from hunters describe rabbits dying suddenly after crossing a
Roundup-sprayed field, and pet owners have described dogs dying of
seizures after exposure to Roundup-sprayed lawns.
Despite these, Roundup's benign image remains intact [1]. But the
evidence that the herbicide is far from physiologically inert is
mounting.
The latest published Roundup toxicity study sought to explain the link between the herbicide and cardiac function problems.
A French team, led by Steve Gress, investigated what happened when
strips of rat and rabbit heart, stimulated to contract by electrical
impulses, were exposed to Roundup or its active ingredient, glyphosate.
The herbicide used was 'Roundup Ultra' which is freely available in
France and which has 36% glyphosate plus 16% of an undeclared adjuvant
added to increase the effectiveness of the glyphosate.
What they found was that glyphosate on its own had no effect. Roundup,
however, progressively and irreversibly impaired the contractile
function of the heart tissue. Further investigations of the mechanism
of Roundup damage suggested that the vital flow and exchange of metal
ions (sodium, calcium and potassium) in the heart cells was being
blocked.
OUR COMMENT
The picture suggested by these
findings is that the adjuvants added to Roundup to breach plant
protective structures so that the glyphosate can penetrate into the
plant cells and kill them, are also able to compromise the integrity of
animal cell membranes. Glyphosate, which is inert if kept outside the
cell, is thus brought into contact with the cells' metal ions which it
binds and immobilises. Roundup's active ingredient may not kill the
heart cells, but it could be destroying their function and kill the
animal.
The concentrations of Roundup and
glyphosate used in this experiment modelled those found in the blood
passing through the heart of a suicide or accidental poisoning victim,
and was much higher than levels used in routine agriculture. Much of
the world's population now seems to be drip-fed Roundup and glyphosate
in their food, water and environment [2], but surely the odd
dysfunctional heart cell resulting from chronic low-level exposure won't
kill anyone.
Or will it?
Bear in mind that:
No one's going to keel over from
heart-failure after eating a few lentils dried down with Roundup, but a
lifetime of Roundup gnawing away at your heart cells could be a part of
the oddly parallel increase in heart disease and Roundup application now
showing up in America [4].
We urgently need in-depth scientific
testing of the effects of chronic exposure to Roundup on all organ
systems, and clinical trails. Keep asking for it.
Background:
[1] GLYPHOSATE: SAFE AS SALT? - GMFS (Archive), February 2009
[2] A WORLD AWASH WITH GLYPHOSATE - April 2014
[3] GM PESTICIDES INSIDE YOU - April 2011
[4] HOW MUCH DISEASE IS ROUNDUP CAUSING? - December 2014
SOURCE:
|
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
GMO NEWS - JANUARY 7, 2015
Idaho legislators and agricultural industry leaders are aware of the efforts in other states to require mandatory labeling of GMO products at the retail level or ban the planting of genetically modified crops, said Sen. Bert Brackett, a Republican ...
Since then thousands of applications for experimental genetically-modified (GM) organisms, including quite bizarre GMOs,
have been filed with the US Patent Office alone, and many more abroad.
Furthermore ... You may have, at the time, known exactly how ...
Genetically engineered seeds were first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1982, GMO products first hit grocery stores in 1994, and GMO crops were planted on more than 100 million acres by 1999. So have they delivered on Fraley's promises ...
On
a recent WWBT TV 12 news segment, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation
representatives explained that genetically modified crops are no
different from conventional crops.
Those for and those against the mandatory labeling
of foods with ingredients developed through bioengineering squared off
at a House subcommittee hearing on Dec. 10 called to draw attention to
H.R.
Every week we seem to get more and more questions on GMO's.
This is the second column we are writing about them, because it has
been such a controversial topic, with widespread debates about whether
labeling should be mandatory.
MONSANTO
CO has improved earnings per share by 34.0% in the most recent quarter
compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a
pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Monsanto
(MON) , the world's largest seed producer, owning about 27% all seeds
used in modern agricultural farming, will continue to make money,
despite concerns about a year-over-year decline in U.S.
It has been declared 'the International Year of the Soil,' but the year ahead, according to Dr. Vandana Shiva, will also see key developments in the global fight to overthrow corporate power with true democracy.
Kathleen Furey
916.397.1588 - Mobile
Education & Media Outreach
NY GE Labeling gmofreeny.net Label GMOs CA www.labelgmos.org cleanfoodearth@gmail.com
Hey, We've All Gotta Eat!
|
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
"DISOBEDIENCE IS VITAL" - VANDANA SHIVA
| Elle | - |
La première fois que l'on rencontre Vandana Shiva,
c'est en octobre 2013, au Women's Forum de Deauville, un rassemblement
annuel de femmes d'influence de tous continents. Son sari tranche dans
le ballet des costumes des businesswomen. Ses idées ...
Translated by Google Translate:
Translated by Google Translate:
If environmentalists are heard today is thanks to her. Teaches us that opponent to the giants of the food? Answers in a fascinating book *.
The first time we meet Vandana Shiva, it was in October 2013, the Women's Forum in Deauville, an annual gathering of influential women from all continents. Slice her sari in ballet costumes of businesswomen. His ideas also. In her mouth, no discourse on competitiveness, but rather an exhortation to cooperation and solidarity. Wisdom, benevolence that Gandhi feminine applied all his life environmental activist. The second head-to-head is held by Skype in fall 2014. Even by interposed screen, Vandana Shiva has the aura of women in particular needed. Sure of herself and her struggle, she also has an unshakable faith in the men's capacity for change. Meet a whistleblower unusual.
IT. You gave a conference on agro-ecology in Paris, sold on December 6. This will he reassures have your case heard?
Vandana Shiva. Yes I Am. But it's been that I no longer feel alone in my fight for biodiversity, fortunately. I gave this conference with the wonderful poet and philosopher Pierre Rabhi. He defends, like me, a model of society more respectful of man and nature. And advocates a happy sobriety. There are thirty, I was fighting to save Indian agriculture in the race to pesticides and the threat of GMOs; Today, I am joined by many NGOs, politicians around the world. That's reassuring.
IT. Since when you are struggling to preserve the planet and its resources?
Vandana Shiva. My first act of resistance, I made unconsciously, on the feast of my 6 years. My grandmother was very proud to offer me a nylon sari, made I know not where. I politely declined preferring to keep my own organic cotton. It was just a piece of cloth, but I felt myself, high to a grasshopper, it was more than that. At 22, I became involved in the movement Chipko Andolan: women chained themselves to trees to prevent deforestation.
IT. Where do you get this rebellious soul?
Vandana Shiva. My family! My mother was an intellectual, a university, but it was someone very close to nature and even became a farmer on later. And my father was a ranger. I spent my youth roaming the forests of the Himalayas, to study the virtues of medicinal plants, herbaria tinkering ... My grandfather made a hunger strike to defend the creation of a School girls in the 50s, I was deeply affected. He braved the dominant caste to which the idea of educating girls at the time was preposterous. He died in 1956, a few months before the opening of the facility. He won, but he never knew.
IT. Why have you abandoned your scholar teaching position at the University of Bangalore to take up the cause of Indian farmers?
Vandana Shiva. Because I could not juggle everything! After my PhD in quantum physics in Canada, I'm back home in the Dun Valley. The damage from intensive agriculture jumped in my face, I saw the desperation of farmers. I decided to found an eco-friendly farm, a training center for farmers along my Navdanya association for the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of the rights of farmers.
IT. What is your life in this ecological farm?
Vandana Shiva. That of a peasant! Birdsong pulls me out of bed at 6:00. There is no radio or television. I have assembled a team of scientists studying the seeds, we train farmers in organic method. We managed to identify 670 different varieties of rice! And we receive each year, twenty trainees worldwide.
IT. What solutions do you advocate?
Vandana Shiva. The return to local production and a short-circuit distribution. Citizens have the opportunity to act on their scale. Moreover they begin to do so. I was in Italy last October. The Province of Rome has the largest green spaces in all European cities. A law will allow the unemployed to cultivate municipal lands for their own consumption and allow them to sell their produce. And France, shared gardens explode.
IT. You are now enemy number 1 food multinationals. Are you at risk?
Vandana Shiva. We do not risk much when we burn Monsanto's cotton fields, except for a few weeks in jail. It's nothing compared to the suicide of a farmer who is drowning in debt. Between 1995 and 2012, 284,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide. Food sovereignty was dismantled in favor of Walmart, Cargill, Monsanto and Coca-Cola ... India is facing a dilemma: strong growth - up to 9% by 2011! - Yet, according to UNICEF, an Indian woman in three is undernourished. I admire non-violence advocated by Gandhi, but that does not mean sit back against the plundering of our resources.
IT. "Disobedience" is a word you are fond ...
Vandana Shiva. This is vital to disobey when faced unjust laws. Only the human rights prevail. Anyone can say no ... Look Malala.
IT. What is your greatest victory?
Vandana Shiva. That of having Federated 500,000 farmers and helped launch 120 seed banks. That of having been suspended by the Indian Supreme Court for large-scale trials of transgenic cotton in 1999. It is close to have a Coca-Cola plant that emptied the water table in Kerala in 2010. But there will other trials, other events and other victories.
IT. You have a son, would you send it?
Vandana Shiva. Kartikey is a photographer, including ELLE India. But it gives me a hand on the farm. I am transmitting the virus ecology my family, I have a doctor and a pilot brother sister retired. All help me on the farm.
IT. You have 62 years, until when will you fight?
Vandana Shiva. Until the end! It is the engine of my life, my mission. So many people rely on me to defend them, I can not let them down. This is the result of my education. My parents always told me: "Ask yourself what contribution you can make to the world, rather than asking you what you can get." And in my heart I am 20 years old.
* "Vandana Shiva, for a creative disobedience," interviews with Lionel Astruc (Ed. Actes Sud).
The first time we meet Vandana Shiva, it was in October 2013, the Women's Forum in Deauville, an annual gathering of influential women from all continents. Slice her sari in ballet costumes of businesswomen. His ideas also. In her mouth, no discourse on competitiveness, but rather an exhortation to cooperation and solidarity. Wisdom, benevolence that Gandhi feminine applied all his life environmental activist. The second head-to-head is held by Skype in fall 2014. Even by interposed screen, Vandana Shiva has the aura of women in particular needed. Sure of herself and her struggle, she also has an unshakable faith in the men's capacity for change. Meet a whistleblower unusual.
IT. You gave a conference on agro-ecology in Paris, sold on December 6. This will he reassures have your case heard?
Vandana Shiva. Yes I Am. But it's been that I no longer feel alone in my fight for biodiversity, fortunately. I gave this conference with the wonderful poet and philosopher Pierre Rabhi. He defends, like me, a model of society more respectful of man and nature. And advocates a happy sobriety. There are thirty, I was fighting to save Indian agriculture in the race to pesticides and the threat of GMOs; Today, I am joined by many NGOs, politicians around the world. That's reassuring.
IT. Since when you are struggling to preserve the planet and its resources?
Vandana Shiva. My first act of resistance, I made unconsciously, on the feast of my 6 years. My grandmother was very proud to offer me a nylon sari, made I know not where. I politely declined preferring to keep my own organic cotton. It was just a piece of cloth, but I felt myself, high to a grasshopper, it was more than that. At 22, I became involved in the movement Chipko Andolan: women chained themselves to trees to prevent deforestation.
IT. Where do you get this rebellious soul?
Vandana Shiva. My family! My mother was an intellectual, a university, but it was someone very close to nature and even became a farmer on later. And my father was a ranger. I spent my youth roaming the forests of the Himalayas, to study the virtues of medicinal plants, herbaria tinkering ... My grandfather made a hunger strike to defend the creation of a School girls in the 50s, I was deeply affected. He braved the dominant caste to which the idea of educating girls at the time was preposterous. He died in 1956, a few months before the opening of the facility. He won, but he never knew.
IT. Why have you abandoned your scholar teaching position at the University of Bangalore to take up the cause of Indian farmers?
Vandana Shiva. Because I could not juggle everything! After my PhD in quantum physics in Canada, I'm back home in the Dun Valley. The damage from intensive agriculture jumped in my face, I saw the desperation of farmers. I decided to found an eco-friendly farm, a training center for farmers along my Navdanya association for the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of the rights of farmers.
IT. What is your life in this ecological farm?
Vandana Shiva. That of a peasant! Birdsong pulls me out of bed at 6:00. There is no radio or television. I have assembled a team of scientists studying the seeds, we train farmers in organic method. We managed to identify 670 different varieties of rice! And we receive each year, twenty trainees worldwide.
IT. What solutions do you advocate?
Vandana Shiva. The return to local production and a short-circuit distribution. Citizens have the opportunity to act on their scale. Moreover they begin to do so. I was in Italy last October. The Province of Rome has the largest green spaces in all European cities. A law will allow the unemployed to cultivate municipal lands for their own consumption and allow them to sell their produce. And France, shared gardens explode.
IT. You are now enemy number 1 food multinationals. Are you at risk?
Vandana Shiva. We do not risk much when we burn Monsanto's cotton fields, except for a few weeks in jail. It's nothing compared to the suicide of a farmer who is drowning in debt. Between 1995 and 2012, 284,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide. Food sovereignty was dismantled in favor of Walmart, Cargill, Monsanto and Coca-Cola ... India is facing a dilemma: strong growth - up to 9% by 2011! - Yet, according to UNICEF, an Indian woman in three is undernourished. I admire non-violence advocated by Gandhi, but that does not mean sit back against the plundering of our resources.
IT. "Disobedience" is a word you are fond ...
Vandana Shiva. This is vital to disobey when faced unjust laws. Only the human rights prevail. Anyone can say no ... Look Malala.
IT. What is your greatest victory?
Vandana Shiva. That of having Federated 500,000 farmers and helped launch 120 seed banks. That of having been suspended by the Indian Supreme Court for large-scale trials of transgenic cotton in 1999. It is close to have a Coca-Cola plant that emptied the water table in Kerala in 2010. But there will other trials, other events and other victories.
IT. You have a son, would you send it?
Vandana Shiva. Kartikey is a photographer, including ELLE India. But it gives me a hand on the farm. I am transmitting the virus ecology my family, I have a doctor and a pilot brother sister retired. All help me on the farm.
IT. You have 62 years, until when will you fight?
Vandana Shiva. Until the end! It is the engine of my life, my mission. So many people rely on me to defend them, I can not let them down. This is the result of my education. My parents always told me: "Ask yourself what contribution you can make to the world, rather than asking you what you can get." And in my heart I am 20 years old.
* "Vandana Shiva, for a creative disobedience," interviews with Lionel Astruc (Ed. Actes Sud).
Écrit par :Julia Dion
END OF 2014 ROUNDUP ON GMO NEWS 'ROUND THE WORLD
Iowa
farmers and companies are suing Syngenta AG, claiming they suffered
financial losses when China rejected corn shipments containing a genetically modified seed developed by the agribusiness giant but not approved for use by China. Sixteen growers ...
|
The
Oregonian's data team mapped precinct data for Oregon's 11 most
populous counties for the Nov. 4 vote in three races: governor,
marijuana legalization and GMO labeling. Here are three surprises revealed in detail by the data. You can find more by ...
|
| Capital press | - |
The USDA has cleared the way for cultivation of genetically modified tall fescue without conducting an environmental review of the new crop.
| Raw Story | - |
“Well, of course, a company like Monsanto,”
he said, “which owns all the great lobbyists in the world, went to work
and they convinced people that it would cost them more money at the
grocery store.
| The Ozarks Sentinel | - |
Since then thousands of applications for experimental genetically-modified (GM) organisms, including quite bizarre GMOs,
have been filed with the US Patent Office alone, and many more abroad.
Furthermore ... You may have, at the time, known exactly how ...
| MarketWatch | - |
NEW YORK,
Dec. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- This report analyzes the worldwide
markets for Food Safety Testing in US$ Million by the following Testing
Types: Pathogens Testing, Pesticide Testing, GMO Testing, and Other Testing. The End-Use markets also ...
| lehighvalleylive.com | - |
One of the biggest threats to our health is the food we eat daily. Seldom do we ask where it comes from or whether it was genetically modified to withstand toxic weedkillers such as Roundup, atrazine and now 2,4-D ( a form of Agent Orange). We seem to ...
The E.U has established a legal framework regulating GM food
and feed derived products as well as the release of living genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment in order to ensure a high
level of protection of human and animal health, ...
|
If you're a consumer who takes a strong stance against genetically modified (GM) crops, or GMOs, you may want to catch the next plane to Europe.
|
| Agri-Pulse | - |
The
war over bioengineered products in food erupted in several battles in
2014, most noticeably in Vermont, which in the spring enacted the
nation's first law requiring mandatory labeling of foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). If it ...
| Benzinga | - |
“We believe Monsanto
will continue to drive higher seed pricing in 2015 through mix-lift
upgrades,” Massoud wrote. “In our view, investor concern over a year
over year decline in U.S.
Maui is winning the war against Monsanto, according to an attorney for the Sustainable Hawaiian Agriculture for the Keiki and the Aina (SHAKA) Movement.
|
Many
individuals are aware that biotech has developed a seed monopoly
largely by patenting genetically modified organisms, but not everyone
realizes that Monsanto tried to patent a tomato that had no biotech traits. Now, the European Patent Office (EPO ...
|
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