WILL FOOD PRODUCERS SCRAMBLE FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF NON-GMO FOOD SOURCES?

Seeking Food Ingredients That Aren’t Gene-Altered

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Lizanne Falsetto’s company, thinkThin, spent 18 months looking for nongenetically modified ingredients for its Crunch bars.

By STEPHANIE STROM    Published: May 26, 2013
Food companies big and small are struggling to replace genetically modified ingredients with conventional ones.

Pressure is growing to label products made from genetically modified organisms, or “G.M.O.” In Connecticut, Vermont and Maine, at least one chamber of the state legislature has approved bills that would require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients, and similar legislation is pending in more than two dozen other states. This weekend, rallies were held around the globe against producers of genetically altered ingredients, and consumers are threatening to boycott products that are not labeled.

And so, for many businesses, the pressing concern is just what it will take to gain certification as non-G.M.O.

Lizanne Falsetto knew two years ago that she had to change how her company, thinkThin, made Crunch snack bars. Her largest buyer, Whole Foods Market, wanted more products without genetically engineered ingredients — and her bars had them. Ms. Falsetto did not know how difficult it would be to acquire non-G.M.O. ingredients.

ThinkThin spent 18 months just trying to find suppliers. “And then we had to work to achieve the same taste and texture we had with the old ingredients,” Ms. Falsetto said. Finally, last month, the company began selling Crunch bars certified as non-G.M.O.

The Non-GMO Project was until recently the only group offering certification, and demand for its services has soared. Roughly 180 companies inquired about how to gain certification last October, when California tried to require labeling (the initiative was later voted down), according to Megan Westgate, co-founder and executive director of the Non-GMO Project.

Nearly 300 more signed up in March, after Whole Foods announced that all products sold in its stores would have to be labeled to describe genetically engineered contents, and about 300 more inquiries followed in April, she said.

“We have seen an exponential increase in the number of enrollments,” Ms. Westgate said.

The shift is evident in prices of nongenetically modified crops, which have been rising as more companies seek them out. Two years ago, a bushel of non-G.M.O. soybeans cost $1 to $1.25 more than a bushel of genetically modified soybeans. Now, that premium is $2. For corn, the premium has jumped from 10 cents to as high as 75 cents.

“We’ve had more calls from food processors wanting to know if we can arrange for non-G.M.O. supplies,” said Lynn Clarkson, founder and president of Clarkson Grain, which sells such conventional grains.

In this country, roughly 90 percent or more of four major crops — corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets — are grown from genetically engineered seeds, creating a challenge for companies seeking to swap to ingredients sourced from conventional varieties. A portion of the conventional varieties of those crops is exported, and much of the rest of those crops is already spoken for by organic and other companies here.

Additionally, the livestock industry is increasing its demand for non-G.M.O. crops to meet growing demand among consumers for eggs and meats sourced from animals that have never eaten genetically modified feeds.

On Saturday, at least two million people in 436 cities in 52 countries rallied in protests against the seed giant Monsanto and genetically modified food, according to the organizers of the “March Against Monsanto.” The company, based in St. Louis, is the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds and the pesticides used to protect them.

Farmers have long crossbred plants to improve genetics in an effort to increase productivity and resistance to pests and diseases, and decrease the need for water, among other things.

The type of genetic engineering done by Monsanto and its competitors, however, involves inserting genetic materials, sometimes from wholly different plant species and bacteria, directly into the DNA plants like corn or soybeans.

Regulators and some scientists say this poses no threat to human health, but a growing number of consumers are demanding increased information about what is in their food, whether it is gluten or genetically engineered ingredients.

Monsanto said it respected people’s right to express their opinion, but maintained that its seeds improved agriculture “by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving natural resources such as water and energy.”

Mr. Clarkson said that, so far, there were more of those non-G.M.O. crops than buyers for them, and large companies like Silk and Hain Celestial that have long been users of conventional crops say they are not worried.

“I don’t think you can discount the number of companies that are not in favor of labeling, which is what is driving demand right now,” said Ellen Deutsch, senior vice president and chief growth officer at Hain. “But if demand does grow, we will need to maintain our longstanding relationships with our suppliers.”

Errol Schweizer, national grocery buyer at Whole Foods, said he was already seeing shortages in organic and conventional seeds, as well as in commodity ingredients sourced from conventional crops.

“Suppliers are going overseas to get what they need,” he said. “We know farmers need to feel secure that there’s a market for what they grow, and I’m saying, please plant these crops, there is a demand.”

Dealers in conventional crops say more farmers will switch to them if the demand is there, but it will take time. Most food-processing companies have an 18-month supply chain for crops like corn and soy, which means that if they begin making a switch today, the earliest they might get certification would be in 2015.

And farmers cannot simply replace genetically engineered seeds with conventional ones, because soil in which genetically modified crops have been grown may not be immediately suitable for conventional crops.

“There’s a transition period required,” said Richard Kamolvathin, senior vice president at Verity Farms, which sells meats, grains and other products derived from conventional crops, as well as natural soil amendments. “You don’t just stop growing G.M.O. seed and then start growing non-G.M.O. seed.”

Nor can companies simply replace, say, corn flour from genetically engineered corn with its non-G.M.O. cousin without wreaking havoc on things like taste, consistency and mouth feel.

Every ingredient in a product must be verified by affidavit, and storage and processing facilities, as well as transportation equipment, must be scrubbed of all traces of genetically modified supplies.

Those requirements may be too high a hurdle for some food processors. Big makers of pivotal ingredients like corn and soy oil, for instance, cannot easily switch back and forth between genetically engineered and conventional sources.

Even companies that use conventional crops in production have to work hard to get certified. Silk, a large maker of soy and nut “milks,” has used soy beans from plants that are not genetically modified since its founding.

But it took the company some eight months to gather and compile lists of all its ingredients, affidavits from suppliers, test records and other information, then go through independent testing for confirmation, before its products gained non-G.M.O. certification — and it helps underwrite the Non-GMO Project.

“It’s a pretty significant undertaking,” said Craig Shiesley, senior vice president for plant-based beverages at WhiteWave Foods, the parent company of Silk. “We make 100 million gallons of soy milk using one million bushels of soy beans, and this affects not only all those bushels of soy beans and other ingredients like vitamins and flavorings, but also all of our manufacturing and distribution.”

While Whole Foods tries to help suppliers procure non-G.M.O. ingredients, its labeling initiative is causing headaches.

“Whole Foods has come in the back door and inadvertently created something of a crisis,” said Reuven Flamer, the founder of Natural Food Certifiers, which certifies foods as organic or kosher and is now adding non-G.M.O. certification to its list of services. “People who make organic products support non-G.M.O. standards, but they are already paying a premium for their supplies and certification.”

Based on the demand he is seeing for non-G.M.O. certification, Mr. Flamer says it is almost certain the supply of conventional seeds and crops, and derivatives of those crops, is going to become an issue.

That worries Manuel Lopez, whose family owns El Milagro, a tortilla and tortilla products company in Chicago. “We’ve always used non-G.M.O. corn,” he said, “and our concern is about our supply.”

The cost of the corn El Milagro uses is roughly 1.7 times the cost of genetically engineered corn, he said, and the company cannot pass on all the additional cost to customers.

Mr. Lopez is hopeful, though. “I believe there are a lot of farmers who want to get away from G.M.O.,” he said. “If they see more demand, I think they will respond.”

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/business/food-companies-seeking-ingredients-that-arent-gene-altered.html?ref=stephaniestrom&_r=0

FRANKENFRONT GROUPS FOILED BY IDDY BIDDY STATE

How Grassroots Advocates Beat the Biotech and Food Lobbies

BY MICHELE SIMON | JUNE 5, 2013

OPINION

This week, Connecticut won the honor of becoming the first state to pass a law requiring genetically engineered foods to be labeled. (The governor has indicated he will sign.) It was really only a matter of time. The disappointing defeat of Prop 37 last fall in California (thanks to a massive industry disinformation campaign) sparked a national movement that has resulted in labeling bills getting introduced in about half the states.

But how did the small state of Connecticut make this happen?

I spoke at length with the leader of the effort, Tara Cook-Littman of GMO Free CT, who worked for the past two years as a volunteer. (See the group’s impressive list of coalition partners.)

She said for a long time efforts to pass labeling bills went nowhere, but things started to change two years ago once advocates formally organized themselves. While at first she and others “were dismissed as a bunch of crazy moms and environmentalists,” things started to pick up last year “when advocates were able to show themselves to be a serious movement with political power.”

What about the opposition? Cook-Littman said it was formidable, and that industry made all the same fear-mongering arguments we heard last year during Prop 37 in California about higher food prices and confusing consumers.

She and others suspect the biotech industry was funneling money through the trade group the Connecticut Food Association, which represents retailers and wholesalers. Also in opposition was the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the national trade group for food makers, which firmly stated its opposition to Prop 37 last year, calling it the organization’s “single-highest priority.”

In addition, Cook-Littman told me about the front group industry formed to oppose the bill, “Connecticut Farm to Food.” (For more about front groups, see my recent report.) This group’s home page claims boldly if inexplicably, “Forced labeling will drive business and science out of Connecticut.” Listed as sponsors are three groups: The Council for Biotechnology Information (a trade group for the biotech industry; its website is whybiotech.com), the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association, and the previously mentioned Grocery Manufacturers Association. In other words, two of these three groups behind this “Connecticut” organization are based in Washington DC.

The toughest opposition though, Cook-Littman said, came from the Connecticut Farm Bureau, which claimed the bill would hurt farmers, despite the bill not even being about farming, but rather food products. “They claimed that farmers’ sales of value-added products would be destroyed if they had to be labeled,” she said. But as a strong counterweight, advocates had the support of the state’s numerous organic farmers, led by the Connecticut Chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, which Cook-Littman called “our truest partner.”

Still, how did this grassroots group fight off such high-powered lobbyists representing at least three major industries – biotech, food retailers, and food manufacturers? She said, “We just got louder.”

What exactly was the turning point for the movement? Cook-Littman said face-to-face meetings with politicians were critical. “We spent a lot of time developing relationships with our representatives. Just spending that time with them was invaluable,” she said.

Also, the group’s social media presence, especially on Facebook, allowed non-paid advocates to engage in less time-consuming ways. “We told our representatives, ‘Look at what’s happening on Facebook.’”

And simply showing up in massive numbers when it counted: at two critical rallies, one before the legislative session began, another just weeks ago, along with a huge turnout for the hearing.

Cook-Littman credits the national advocacy group Food Democracy Now! for being a vital partner in the effort. “We could not have done it without them. They always believed in us, while others discounted us,” she said. “They also helped drive more than 40,000 phone calls to the governor’s office and provided strategic advice along the way.”

Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, told me that another turning point was when Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream came to the capital to testify in support of the bill.

“That gave the issue instant credibility because Ben and Jerry’s is a very successful company. There were politicians who had been against the bill standing in line for ice cream and a photo opp with Jerry.”

Also, there were several times during the process when they thought the bill was dead. But the advocates didn’t give up; another crucial lesson: to hang in there.

Of course, to get any bill difficult bill passed, compromises must be made along the way. While the labeling provisions of the bill are strong, unfortunately, legislators added a “trigger clause,” which requires that four other states in the northeast region enact similar bills before the law takes effect in Connecticut.

Cook-Littman told me that the advocates fought to keep this provision out, but at the end of day they were advised to take the compromise or else risk the bill going down to defeat, with an uncertain future. She is quite confident that the clause will actually motivate other states to get bill passed. And as a member of the Right to Know Coalition of States, she is determined to help others in doing so. She also hopes the passage helps the Washington State ballot measure coming up for vote this November.

What advice does Cook-Littman have for advocates in other states facing similar opposition from powerful lobbyists?

“I told my fellow advocates, ‘Stand in your power as a constituent and let your representatives hear you.’ Too often, we give up our power,” she said. “But once you realize that you can make a difference, that’s when change happens. Also, stay the course and keep fighting.”

Dave Murphy called the Connecticut victory “one giant step for Connecticut and one giant leap for the GMO labeling movement.” He continued: “The grassroots have won the day in Connecticut for a key victory over Monsanto and the biotech lobby. It was inspiring to watch Connecticut legislators supporting GMO labeling stand strong in the face of the biotech industry’s effort to kill the bill.”

Also feeling inspired, Cook-Littman told me, “It truly feels amazing to know that our little state of Connecticut, with its grassroots power, was able to beat back the opposition to get the bill passed. I really do think it is an important step and will encourage other states to do the same.”

I couldn’t agree more. These victories don’t come very often. Let’s savor this one.

Source:  http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/06/how-grassroots-advocates-beat-the-biotech-and-food-lobbies/#.Ua9UPs2ZhD4

GMO ALFALFA TO FOLLOW GMO WHEAT CONTAMINATION - APPROVED AMIDST HUGE PROTEST

Statement from Center for Food Safety Regarding Decision on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa

May 17th, 2013

Center for Food Safety and food movement remain committed to protecting farmers and environment
Center for Food Safety (CFS) is disappointed with today’s decision by the Ninth District Circuit Court to uphold USDA’s deregulation of genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa, yet will pursue numerous legal options to halt the sale and planting of this harmful crop.
The court acknowledged the myriad harms that will be caused by the deregulation of GE alfalfa, including irreparable damages to rural economies from transgenic contamination, closing of major export markets, significant increase in the use of herbicides and the resulting spread of herbicide-resistant weeds, as well as harms to the environment and numerous endangered species. 
“This is an irresponsible decision. The court acknowledged the many stark environmental and economic impacts of these crops, and yet bends over backwards in allowing USDA to avoid addressing those concerns in its regulatory process,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety. “This decision is contrary to the Supreme Courts’ decision on GE alfalfa and prior decisions by numerous other courts.”
CFS also announced its intention to appeal the decision and take other legal actions against USDA and EPA to ensure adequate regulation of these and other GE crops.
In its ruling, the Court acknowledged, as did the USDA in its final Environmental Impact Statement deregulating GE alfalfa, that continuing regulation of GE alfalfa is “the environmentally preferred option.”  Yet, in the face of such harms, the Ninth Circuit held that there is no authority for the agency to address harms under the current language of plant pest provisions of the Plant Protection Act, which regulates the introduction of genetically engineered crops in the U.S. 
“Despite the Court’s decision today, farmers, consumers, and environmentalists remain rightfully concerned about the impacts of GE alfalfa.  As such, Center for Food Safety will continue to work diligently on their behalf to prevent the deregulation of this crop.  The risks are too high and the potential consequences too great to do otherwise,” said Sylvia Wu, staff attorney for Center for food Safety.
In 2007, CFS successfully challenged the USDA’s deregulation of GE Alfalfa and forced the agency to expand their review of the crop by conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) – the first ever conducted for an agricultural crop. 
Among the chief concerns with GE alfalfa that the Court and USDA acknowledge, are:

• Transgenic contamination of non-GE varieties of alfalfa by Roundup Ready alfalfa, which took place in the brief months under USDA’s prior deregulation of GE alfalfa, despite the agency’s assurance that such contamination is avoidable;
• Significant economic losses to farmers, who face market rejection of their alfalfa crop, including closing of the top export markets of U.S. alfalfa and hay, as a result of transgenic contamination;
• Increased economic costs to farmers who may be subject to testing and other measures to ensure their non-GE alfalfa crop’s genetic purity;
• Increase in herbicide use as a result of planting herbicide-resistant, Roundup Ready alfalfa that damage the environment;
• Further spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds that have devastated millions of acres of farmland across the U.S.;
• Threat to wildlife species, including numerous threatened and endangered species
  Source:  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/2228/statement-from-center-for-food-safety-regarding-decision-on-genetically-engineered-alfalfa

30 CROPS NOW PROVIDE 95% OF FOOD NUTRITION: RESTORECROP DIVERSITY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

Published on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 by Harvesting Justice

Putting the Culture Back in Agriculture

Reviving Native Food and Farming Traditions

by Tory Field and Beverly Bell

“At one point ‘agriculture’ was about the culture of food. Losing that culture, in favor of an American cultural monocrop, joined with an agricultural monocrop, puts us in a perilous state…” says food and Native activist Winona LaDuke.
Her lament is an agribusiness executive’s dream. The CEO of the H.J. Heinz Company said, “Once television is there, people, whatever shade, culture, or origin, want roughly the same things.”  The same things are based on the same technology, same media sources, same A family on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area of the Southwest makes kneel down bread, a traditional food made with blue corn. (Photo: Brett Ramney)global economy, and same food.
Together with the loss of cultural diversity, the growth of industrial agriculture has led to an enormous depletion in biodiversity. Throughout history, humans have cultivated about 7,000 species of plants. In the last century, three-quarters of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops have been lost. Thirty crops now provide 95% of our food needs, with rice, wheat, maize, and potato alone providing 60%. Eighty-five percent of the apple varieties that once existed in the US have been lost. Vast fields of genetically identical crops are much more susceptible to pests, necessitating increased pesticide use. The lack of diversity also endangers the food supply, as an influx of pests or disease can wipe out enormous quantities of crops in one fell swoop.
Native peoples’ efforts to protect their crop varieties and agricultural heritage in the US go back 500 years to when the Spanish conquistadors arrived. Today, Native communities throughout the US are reclaiming and reviving land, water, seeds, and traditional food and farming practices, thereby putting the culture back in agriculture and agriculture back in local hands.
One such initiative is the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota, which is recovering healthy stewardship of local tribes’ original land base. They are harvesting and selling traditional foods such as wild rice, planting gardens and raising greenhouses, and growing food for farm-to-school and feeding-our-elders programs. They are reintroducing native sturgeon to local waters as well as working to stop pesticide spraying at nearby industrial farms. They are also strengthening relationships with food sovereignty projects around the country. Winona LaDuke, the founding director of the project, told us, “My father used to say, ‘I don’t want to hear your philosophy if you can’t grow corn’… I now grow corn.”
Another revival effort involves buffalo herds. In the 1800s, European-American settlers drove wild buffalo close to extinction, decimating a source of survival for many Native communities. Just one example of the resurgence is the Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative, a cooperative of small-family buffalo caretakers, on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The cooperative sees its work as threefold, to “restore the buffalo, restore the native ecology on Pine Ridge, and help renew the sacred connection between the Lakota people and the buffalo nation.” At the national level, the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative is a network of 56 tribal bison programs from around the country with a collective herd of over 15,000. 
In New Mexico, Native communities are organizing a wealth of initiatives. Around the state, they have started educational and production farms, youth-elder farming exchanges, buffalo revitalization programs, seed-saving initiatives, herb-based diabetes treatment programs, a credit union that invests in green and sustainable projects, and more. Schools like the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the Santa Fe Indian School – along with grammar schools, high schools, and non-profit programs – have developed agricultural education programs. The Traditional Native American Farmers’ Association helps farmers get back onto the land, hosts workshops on seed saving and agricultural techniques, and has a youth program.
The annual Sustainable Food and Seed Sovereignty Symposium at the Tesuque [Indian] Pueblo in northern New Mexico brings together farmers, herbalists, natural dyers, healers, cooks, seed savers, educators, water protectors, and community organizers. From the 2006 symposium came the Declaration of Seed Sovereignty, which denounced genetically engineered seeds and corporate ownership of Native seeds and crops as “a continuation of genocide upon indigenous people and as malicious and sacrilegious acts toward our ancestry, culture, and future generations.”
In addition to the symposium, the Tesuque Pueblo also hosts Tesuque Natural Farms, which grows vegetables, herbs, grains, fruit trees, and cover crops, including varieties long lost to the region. The project is building a Native seed library. The overarching goal is to make the Pueblo autonomous in both food and seeds. Emigdio Ballon, Quechua farmer and geneticist at Tesuque Natural Farm, said, “The only way we can get our autonomy is when we have the resources in our own hands, when we don’t have to buy from seed companies.”
The farm provides fresh foods to the senior center, sells at the farmers’ markets, and trains residents to begin farming themselves. The farm also grows medicinal herbs to treat HIV, diabetes, and cancer, and makes biofertilizer from plants. The preschoolers at the Head Start program garden; grammar school students are beginning to, as well.
People from across the nation come to Tesuque Natural Farms to study agricultural production and to take workshops on pruning, beekeeping, poultry, soil fertility, composting, and other topics. Soon the farm hopes to create a research and education center, where people can come for three to six months.
Nayeli Guzman, a Mexica woman who worked at the farm, said, “What we’re doing is very simple. These ideas are not an alternative for us, they’re just a way of life... We need to all work together as land-based people.
“Creator is not exclusive, so there’s no reason we should be,” she said. “They tell us, ‘The more biodiversity you have, the richer your soil is going to be.’ It’s like that with people. The more different kinds of people you have, the more able we’re going to be to survive. We can’t compartmentalize ourselves. That’s what industrial agriculture does.”
Download the Harvesting Justice pdf here, and find action items, resources, and a popular education curriculum on the Harvesting Justice website. Harvesting Justice was created for the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, check out their work here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Tory Field is Research and Education Coordinator for Other Worlds. Tory is an organizer living in Massachusetts. She worked for many years as a community organizer with Arise for Social Justice, a multi-issue community justice organization in Springfield, MA. where she now serves on the Board of Directors.

Beverly Bell is the founder of Other Worlds and more than a dozen international organizations and networks, Beverly is also an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Beverly has worked for more than three decades as an organizer, advocate, and writer in collaboration with social movements in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S.   She is the author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance.
SOURCE  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/04-11

BRAVO CONNECTICUT FOR SAYING HELL NO TO GMO!

Published on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 by Common Dreams

Victory: Connecticut Becomes First State to Require GMO Labeling

Food safety advocates hope Connecticut's move sparks nationwide momentum for labeling of genetically modified foods

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

In a landmark act, Connecticut has become the first state to require the labeling of genetically modified (gmo) foods.
(Photo: MillionsAgainstMonsanto/cc/flickr) The gmo labeling bill overwhelmingly passed in the House in a 134 - 3 vote on Monday.
As the Hartford Courant reports, the bill entails a sort of trigger in order for it to take effect:

For the legislation to take effect four states — including those bordering Connecticut — must pass a similar bill. In addition, any combination of northeastern states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania or New Jersey), with an aggregate population of at least 20 million people, must approve labeling legislation.
Immediately after the vote, cheers could be heard outside the Hall of the House from advocates who had been pushing the labeling requirement.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) said the trigger "unnecessarily puts on hold what consumers and lawmakers have already validated as important legislation," but still welcomed the passage of the legislation as a victory in the food movement, and hoped Connecticut's action would prove a catalyst for other states to enact similar measures.
Mark Kastel, co-director of the Cornucopia Institute, told the New York Times that the trigger may not be entirely negative.
“The hurdles in the Connecticut bill, if surmounted, would mean a critical mass in the marketplace that would emulate the impacts that would have materialized if California had passed its ballot initiative,” said Kastel.
Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, cheered the bill's passage as a victory of people power over corporate agriculture, saying, "The grassroots have won in Connecticut for a key victory over Monsanto and the biotech lobby.”
"It was inspiring to watch Connecticut legislators supporting GMO labeling stand strong in the face of the biotech industry's effort to kill the bill," said Murpy.
“Numerous other states in the Northeast and around the country are actively considering pending GE food labeling bills. Connecticut’s leadership provides momentum and an incentive for these other states to move forward,” Rebecca Spector, who works on state GMO labeling legislative efforts at CFS, said in a statement. “Other states should now pass GE labeling laws, providing millions of U.S. consumers with the basic right to know how their food is produced.”
The legislation now heads to Gov. Malloy, who is expected to sign it.

_________________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
AOURCE:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/04-3

GMOs NOT CLASSISFIED AS "FOOD", CLASSIFIED AS PESTICIDE AND PHARMA CATEGORY?

GMO created foods may be used as a biological weapon

• May 30, 2011
• By: Kenneth Schortgen Jr

GMO Cord

Credits: 

Courtesy of darkgovernment.com

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.

A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.
Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs. Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex. The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.
The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”
Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

Besides the creation and use of GMO corn and other staples in places like South America, Mexico, and Africa, an interesting data point was discovered in the US shortly after GMO foods (BT-Corn) were approved in 1996. Since that time, birth rates in the US have been falling, and accelerating in decline since 1999, just three years after the introduction of the GMO to the food supply.
Since GMO food is not considered a natural commodity for consumption by the UN's regulatory body (Codex), and scientists have purposefully introduced spermacidal modifications into corn for the purpose of controlling world populations, then unequivocally, one of the many purposes of GMO created foods is for the use as a biological weapon.
Many global foundations have been pushing for the expansion of GMO foods, especially corn, soybeans, and rice to help end hunger and poverty around the world, and primarily in third world countries. The Gates Foundation, the Rockfeller Foundation, and former UN Chief Kofi Annan's Agra organization are just three powerful entities supplying funds and promotions to expand GMO use in many countries.
There is also an ongoing battle between citizens and the FDA to demand labelling of GMO based food products, but to this point, the government agency has been able to keep the public in the dark on what is in their food. Since GMO based products are not considered food under UN regulations, many questions still remain as to the reasons why the FDA allows them in consumable foods at all.
Creating a food source or seed meant to be eaten by man as a dietary staple which has been modified to bring sterility or outright birth control is in essence, creating and distributing a biological weapon for the sole purpose of lowering birth rates and populations in one or more locations. Since GMO based products are not considered food according to the UN Codex, but are being allowed into the world's diet as a consumable, creates many questions as to the real purpose of expanding GMO use into the food supply.
SOURCE:  http://www.examiner.com/article/gmo-created-foods-may-be-used-as-a-biological-weapon

THE ANSWER IS GMOs BLOWING IN THE WIND

Headwinds, Tailwinds for GMO Labeling  

by Thom Forbes, 24 minutes ago

The winds on the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) front are blowing every which way but static, as seed and pesticide producers and most food marketers and retailers in the U.S. -– but not all -– stamp at brush fires in every direction. 

The Connecticut legislature overwhelming approved a law yesterday that would require that food containing GMOs sold in the state be labeled as such –- but only if four other states do the same, one of them being a neighbor. It won’t be New York, however, at least in the short term. A bill introduced by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, was defeated in committee Monday.

Meanwhile, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, which still rides its iconoclastic horse despite being a division of Unilever, says it will remove all GMO ingredients from its products by the end of next year, Fox News reports. Currently only 80% of the 80 flavors in 200 or so products containing variations of 110 ingredients sold in the U.S. and Canada are GMO-free. 

And In Oregon, 15 members of a Dept. of Agriculture team are making sure that an experimental strain of GMO wheat discovered in an 80-acre field in a remote section of the state last week was an anomaly, Reuters reports. Because of the widespread ban on GMO products in overseas markets, ag officials are worried about the impact of the discovery on the export market. 

Monsanto, which developed the strain, ended its trials of the GMO wheat in 2005 and never sold it. It is conducting its own investigation into where the wheat came from and says that it believes that “the presence of the genetically modified trait is ‘very limited,’” Ian Berry and Sameer C. Mohindru report in the Wall Street Journal. A government spokesman tells Reuters’ Charles Abbott and Jane Chung that there are “no indications that there is any GE (genetically engineered) wheat in commerce.”

Monsanto last week told the German newspaper Tageszeitung (Taz)  it “won't be pursuing licenses for any new genetically modified plants or doing any new field trials of GMO seeds in most parts of western Europe,” CBC News reports.

“We have come to understand that, at the moment, it doesn't have broad acceptance,” Ursula Luettmer-Ouazane, Monsanto's spokesperson for Germany, told Taz. "It's counterproductive to fight against windmills."

But Monsanto has by no means given up the fight in North America.

“Score another victory for Monsanto,” reads the lede on David Knowles report about the defeat of labeling legislation in the Empire State in the New York Daily News. “Lauren Schuster, [Assemblywoman] Rosenthal’s chief of staff, said that a lobbyist for the Council for Biotechnology Information, which represents genetically modified food giants Monsanto and DuPont, attended the committee vote,” and reportedly made a strong enough case for some sponsors to flip their positions.

One of the GMO lobby’s arguments is that “labeling by an individual state might put that state’s industry and businesses at a disadvantage compared with other states,” Stephanie Strom reports in the New York Times. Indeed, Connecticut, with all of its qualifications, is the first state to pass a broad GMO labeling requirement, although more than 20 other states are actively considering it.

“It makes little sense for Connecticut to go it alone,” reads an editorial in the Hartford Courant on May 31, “when it comes to food labeling -- especially on an issue that's as unsettled as this is. To do so would doubtless raise costs and make it easier for manufacturers to stop selling here. For the law to work, it's necessary to get other states on board.”

Cathleen Enright, EVP for food and agriculture at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, tells Strom that the industry supports voluntary labeling, noting that the Food and Drug Administration “typically required labeling of foods only when issues like food safety, consumer health or nutrition were at stake.”

The organization also makes the case that “feeding the growing population by 2050 will require doubling food production and improving food distribution. Accomplishing this will necessitate significant increases in the amount of food produced per acre, or crop yield.” That’s what biotechnology accomplishes, it says, among other benefits. 

“Okay, fine,” reply proponents of labeling. Then be up front about it.

“We support those calling for transparency and a consumer’s right to know and support the push for mandatory labeling,” Ben and Jerry’s says on its website. “We ought to all have freedom to choose whether or not we want to eat food that has been genetically engineered. We think this is a fundamental right.”

So do an overwhelming majority of citizens, according to independent polls compiled by the admittedly partisan Center for Food Safety, leaving one to surmise that Monsanto and its cohorts are at least tilting at the wind in North American, if not windmills quite yet.

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