AGENT ORANGE 2,4-D RESISTANT CROPS:FARMERS SAY NO TO MONSANTO

Monsanto in dispute with
veggie farmers over herbicide
Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY11:36 a.m. EDT March 13, 2014

A group of Midwest vegetable farmers has failed to convince Monsanto to reformulate an herbicide that could become widely used. They say the herbicide can 'drift' and damage vegetable crops.



(Photo: Kansas State Department of Agriculture)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Farmers fear new herbicide will 'drift' and damage vegetable crops
Dow agreed to a change in its herbicide to prevent such drift, but Monsanto did not
Farmers worry this will pit some growers against their neighbors
American farmers are among the biggest supporters
of genetically modified crops on the planet, saying
you can't argue with the results of higher yields for
less work, in spite of concerns — especially in Europe
— about Frankenfoods. But even U.S. farmers have
their limits.

They're going public in what to date has been a back-room battle with two big agricultural giants over the kinds of herbicides that can be sprayed on certain crops. The details might sound like a chemistry lesson to some, but the farmers believe what's at stake is not only their livelihoods but possibly the social fabric of America's farming communities.

The problem: One agricultural company has agreed with the farmers' concerns and changed its plans. Another, though, is resisting, and the farmers are not happy.

This group of Midwest vegetable farmers has failed to convince Monsanto to reformulate an herbicide that could become one of the most widely used in the nation.

But they were able to get another company, Dow AgroSciences, to agree to changes to an herbicide it has on the market. Those changes will protect their fields, the farmers say.

Monsanto officials "have just dug their feet in," said Steve Smith, chairman of the Save Our Crops group. "I'm not here to be a salesman for Dow, but I'm here to stand up when people do the right thing," he said. "Dow did."

The trouble concerns two herbicides, 2,4-D and dicamba. Both have been used for more than 40 years in small amounts, but are about to get a lot more popular.

New corn and soybean varieties genetically modified to withstand these herbicides are expected to be approved in the next few years. The federal comment period for one, 2, 4-D, ended on March 11.

These vegetable farmers have no problems with GM crops.

Rather, the veggie farmers are concerned about a much older problem with the herbicides — something called drift.

Drift occurs when pesticides sprayed to kill weeds in one field waft into neighboring fields, damaging and killing nearby crops. In California in 2012, herbicide sprayed in the San Joaquin Valley drifted and damaged cotton fields 100 miles away.

The new corn and soybean varieties are the latest versions of seed technology that have become hugely popular with U.S. farmers.

Since 1996, farmers have been planting GM crops that can survive being sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate, known to backyard gardeners as Roundup. By 2013, 93% of all soybeans and 85% of all feed corn grown in the USA were glyphosate resistant.

Farmers let both crops and weeds grow up a few weeks, and then spray with glyphosate. The weeds die. The glyphosate-resistant crops don't.

Unfortunately, the technology has proven so popular that "overuse and misuse by farmers and the biotech industry has led to the development of glyphosate-resistant weeds," said Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.







Agricultural companies have been working double time to give farmers new weed-control tools. These latest seed varieties are resistant to stronger herbicides to which the weeds haven't yet built up resistance.

If the regulatory process continues without hiccups, Dow is about a year away from the first sales of its Enlist corn and soybeans, resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D.

Monsanto is estimated to be about two years away from selling Roundup Ready 2 Extend corn and soy. These are resistant to the herbicide dicamba.

Both herbicides mimic a naturally occurring plant growth hormone. "The plant literally grows itself to death," said Franklin Egan a research ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

The new seeds will be a boon to conventional soybean and corn farmers. Environmental and organic groups decry a potential increase in the use of herbicides overall. But farmers who trade in broadleaf vegetables such as potatoes, tomatoes, squash, beans and peas are especially worried.

When the farmers first started hearing about the new GM crops, and the herbicides they would be used with, "it was a huge red flag," said Save Our Crops' Smith.

Both 2,4-D and dicamba are known to drift. While today they're used in relatively small amounts, Dow's Enlist and Monsanto's Roundup Ready 2 Extend products could easily mean tens of thousands of farmers switching to the new seed to deal with glyphosate-resistant weeds.

The herbicides are applied to fields as a liquid, from rigs pulled by tractors, said USDA's Egan. "The vast majority falls straight to the ground but a small fraction can move as water droplets carried by the wind. An even smaller fraction can evaporate and move as a gas," he said.

"It's like the blob that ate Tokyo," said Smith. It just oozes along and when it touches down it kills the plants it touches.

Farmers feared with millions more acres being sprayed with these drift-prone chemicals, their vegetable fields will be in danger. While the new genetically modified varieties of corn and soybean will resist the herbicides, their vegetables won't.

"You have a lot of crops that are sensitive to these herbicides," said Neil Rhodes, director of the herbicide stewardship program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. With vegetable farmers facing the prospect of a much larger area being sprayed with them in coming years, "I'm not surprised they're concerned."

Egan agrees. Vegetable farmers in the Midwest, where large amounts of corn and soybeans are grown, will be at "high risk" because they'll be in close proximity to fields being sprayed with 2,4-D and dicamba, he said.

To deal with the threat to their farms, vegetable growers formed the Save Our Crops Coalition, concerned about their crops being harmed by drift.

Save Our Crops member Jody Herr has seen it happen. He farms 2,800 acres in Lowell, Ind.

"I grow sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes and eggplant as well as corn and soy," he said.

In June, the plants in one of his tomato fields began to grow wrong. "The leaves were curled, the branches were twisted and misshapen. The fruit they set was deformed," he said.

Herr recognized the damage as typical for dicamba. He hadn't used it on his fields, but a neighbor had — on a field a mile and a half away.

He worries that if use of these two herbicides ramps up and nothing is done, it won't just damage fields, it will damage the fabric of farming communities themselves.

"You're accusing your neighbor of harming your stuff. You've got to live with these people your whole life, and your children will live with their children," he said.

The vegetable growers and processors came together to work on the issue. They first approached Dow in 2011,

because its product was closest to coming to market.

"They weren't exactly thrilled with some of the original message," said Save our Crops' Smith. "But you know what? After several meetings of us sharing our concerns, we ended up finding some solutions that work for both of us."

The agreement was a no-brainer, said Dow spokesman Garry Hamlin. The vegetable farmers also buy Dow products. "We can't create an issue for one set of our customers to benefit another set of customers," he said.

Dow not only reformulated 2,4-D to make it less prone to vaporize and drift, but also rewrote the label to restrict farmers from using it when the wind was blowing toward a sensitive crop.

Growers are "required by law to follow the product label instructions," said Hamlin.

"They were good corporate citizens," said CSPI's Jaffe. " It's a win-win situation. Dow's customers can benefit from Dow's products, and yet these other farmers won't be hurt by it."

Save Our Crops met with Monsanto in 2013 but nothing came of it. "It became real apparent that they were intent on not making any changes," Smith said.

Monsanto's director of corporate affairs, Tom Helscher, said via e-mail, "we are confident that Monsanto's dicamba-tolerant crops will provide farmers an additional tool for effective weed control that can coexist with the row and specialty crops grown by the Coalition's members."

Save Our Crops isn't convinced. Smith called Monsanto's proposed label restrictions "woefully inadequate." The company "has so far been unwilling to constructively address, as Dow did, the very real threats growers face."

Just rewriting the label so farmers can't spray when the wind's blowing would help enormously. "It's the simplest thing to do and it costs them nothing," said Smith. "They absolutely refuse to make that change."

Jaffe's concern is that if the farmers can't work out a similar agreement with Monsanto, the playing field won't be level. Farmers will choose Monsanto's products because they come with fewer restrictions.

In a world where genetically engineered crops are often a flashpoint, seeing farmers and Dow come together to work out their differences, "was great," Jaffe said.

"I think we should applaud that and look to it as a model to do in the future."

Monsanto's Roundup Ready 2 Extend soybeans and corn still have multiple regulatory hoops to jump through because they can be commercialized. The USDA has to sign off on the seed and the Environmental Protection Agency has to agree to the new use of the herbicide dicamba.

The Save Our Crops Coalition "is confident" that both are paying attention, Smith said. They're hoping federal regulators will even the playing field, even if Monsanto won't.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/monsanto-dow-agrosciences-herbicides-save-our-crops/6015519/

CA SENATOR EVANS - LEADS PASSAGE THRU HEALTH - SB1381 GE FOOD LABELING BILL

Evans' GMO food-labeling bill clears

state 

Senate committee

By DEREK MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

March 26, 2014, 8:29 PM

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Proposed legislation by state Sen. Noreen Evans requiring all foods containing genetically modified organisms to be labeled in California cleared its first hurdle Wednesday in Sacramento.

The Senate Committee on Health approved the bill on a 5-2 vote after Evans, D-Santa Rosa, agreed to several amendments, including that the legislation exclude alcohol products and not take effect until Jan. 1. 2016.

Supporters of GMO labeling argue that it is necessary to protect public health and the consumer's right to make informed choices. Critics, however, say such labels would confuse shoppers and lead to higher production costs.

“I want to be very clear: This bill doesn't ban anything,” Evans testified Wednesday. “It simply requires labeling. It's agnostic on whether GMOs are good, or whether they are bad.”

Proponents of labeling, including the California State Grange, turned to lawmakers after California voters in 2012 narrowly turned down a ballot measure that would have essentially accomplished the same thing.

Wednesday's hearing was a preview of the obstacles SB 1381 will have to overcome if it has any chance of landing on the governor's desk.

Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, the committee's chairman, voted against the bill, as did vice-chairman Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, huddled with Evans at the dais for several minutes before Wolk cast the final vote sending the bill out of committee by the narrowest of margins. Evans also voted for the bill as a member of the health committee. The bill needed five votes to clear the panel.

Wolk said she still has concerns that provisions in the bill allowing people to sue for alleged violations of the labeling law and to collect attorney's fees could lead to “mischief.”

She said she and Evans agreed to “continue the conversation on fees and costs.”

In what some observers called an unusual move, the Senate's Rules Committee assigned the GMO bill to three different committees. It is now set to be heard by the Senate's Judiciary and Agriculture committees.

Teala Schaff, a spokeswoman for Evans, called the triple referral “incredibly rare,” saying it likely reflects lobbying efforts by those who are against the proposed legislation.

Representatives of California's food and farming industries were present Wednesday to denounce the bill, which they contend would expose retailers and farmers to litigation by placing the onus of confirming whether products contain genetically-engineered organisms on them.

“The ultimate liability rests with us,” said Jamie Johansson, a member of the Butte County Farm Bureau.

Critics also contend there's no scientific proof that genetically altered organisms pose a threat to humans.

“The overwhelming scientific evidence is that genetically engineered foods ... are safe,” said Kent Bradford, professor of plant science and director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis.

He argued that labeling would have a chilling effect on the research and development of drought and disease-resistance crops, citing as an example Hawaii's papaya industry, which he said was resurrected with the aid of modern technology.

“A bill like this would require those growers to label those products as if they are somehow inferior or stigmatized,” Bradford said.

But Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist for Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, said there are still “open questions” about the safety of genetically-modified foods, including whether they are introducing new allergens into the food supply.

He said with labeling, “consumers who simply want to avoid these new foods can do so if they wish.”

Genetically modified plants are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, to add nutritional benefits or improve crop yields and to increase the global food supply. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified.

The Food and Drug Administration does not require genetically modified foods to carry a label, and attempts to change that at the federal level have failed. However, efforts to require labeling are pending in several states besides California.

In 2005, Sonoma County voters rejected a ballot measure that would have banned certain GMO products for 10 years, ostensibly to allow more time for testing.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.


SOURCE: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140326/articles/140329630

CALIFORNIA GE FOOD LABELING BILL SB1381 PASSED THROUGH HEALTH COMMITTEE 3-26-2014

GE Labeling Resurrected in California, Petition For Ballot Measure Circulating in Colorado

BY DAN FLYNN | MARCH 25, 2014

California’s 2012 food-labeling ballot measure, rejected by state voters, makes a return from the grave tomorrow with a public hearing in Sacramento. And another state initiative is in the offing in Colorado.

Since the narrow loss for the Golden State’s Proposition 37, which called for labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), almost half the states have seen bills introduced containing similar language.

But moving a GMO-labeling bill through a statehouse has not been easy task. In Colorado, for example, a group calling itself Right to Know Colorado GMO, is avoiding the state’s legislature entirely. It has already filed Initiative 48. With court approval for their ballot title, the group’s next task is to obtain 86,105 valid voter signatures on petitions for submittal to the state by early August.

If the measure qualifies for the ballot, Colorado voters would decide whether food with GMOs sold in the state after July 1, 2016, will be required to have language on the label stating: “Produced With Genetic Engineering.”

Californians for GE Food Labeling — a coalition made up of environmental, foodie and consumer groups — is pitching Senate Bill 1381 as a “simpler, cleaner” version of the ill-fated Prop. 37.

Sponsored by state Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), SB 1381 is one of the few surviving state bills calling for labeling foods with GE ingredients. Evans has more time than most to work the bill as the California General Assembly does not adjourn until Nov. 30. Election-year adjournments for most state legislatures occur much sooner.

Last week, Hawaii House Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Jessica Wooley tried a legislative maneuver to keep a GMO-labeling bill alive. She gutted an unrelated agriculture bill and substituted language for the GMO-labeling requirements.

But her colleagues resisted the move when state officials questioned how the measure could be enforced. “From an enforcement standpoint, unless we have the entire genome of the plant, we won’t be able to test,” said Gary Gill, deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Health.

The bill with the substitute language was then “deferred indefinitely,” effecting killing GM labeling for at least another year in Hawaii. There might be time for another last-minute revival of the GMO bill as the Hawaii Legislature adjourns in early May, but that would happen only if the votes are certain.

State lawmakers in Vermont also go home in early May, and the GE-labeling bill passed by the House there last year still could become law if it can get through the Senate in time.

After a public hearing last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Sears was reported as having concerns about the bill’s dairy exemption and about how much it would cost the relatively small state to defend its action in federal court.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office estimates that defending a challenge over federal preemption would cost state taxpayers upwards of $5 million if it lost and without much in the way of legal fee recovery.

Sears is concerned that the exemption of Vermont’s dairy industry could make it impossible to pass a judicial test. The Virginia Public Interest Research Group, which wrote H. 112, acknowledged that it left dairy out as a “strategic move.”

Sears said he wants to know if the state can defend a bill that “exempts dairy and not corn chips.”

Amendments to deal with funding the inevitable court challenge and removing the dairy exemption were being advanced in Montpelier to get the Judiciary Committee to move the bill to the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, Vermont’s Senate Judiciary Committee has taken no action on S. 289, a bill that would make owners of genetically engineered seed responsible for its spread to other property.

Word has also gone out in Florida that SB 558, assigned to the Senate Agriculture Committee, will not be heard this session. The bill, which would require raw agricultural commodities found by the legislature to be cultivated in GE form to be labeled, has not received much attention. Lawmakers are scheduled to leave Tallahassee on May 2.

Also not moving is Missouri’s SB 533, which calls for labeling all GE meat and fish sold in the state after Sept. 1, 2016. The Missouri General Assembly does not adjourn until May 30, but SB 533 has been stuck in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources.

The GE labeling bill in Rhode Island, HB 7042, appear to be dead, having been held in committee for “further study.”

The Washington Legislature left Olympia without taking action on HB 2143, which would have added another layer of prohibitions over raising genetically modified finfish. At a public hearing in January, the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources heard industry testimony to that effect that the existing ban was sufficient. A spokesman for Puget Sound’s 30-year-old farmed Atlantic salmon business says it has no interest in raising any GM fish because customers are not interested in buying them.

Washington state voters last year also narrowly rejected a GM-labeling bill. Connecticut has adopted a GM-labeling bill, but it is contingent on surrounding states passing similar measures.

© Food Safety News

MISSING FROM NEW FOOD LABELING - GENETICALLY ENGINEERED INGREDIENTS

Published on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 by Common Dreams

New FDA Food Label Rules Ignore the GMO Elephant in the Room

by Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins

(Image: FDA)On February 27, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a media blitz to tout the FDA's proposed new rules for nutrition labels on packaged foods. Both the FDA and Mrs. Obama trumpeted the changes, the first in 20 years and 10 years in the making, as being  designed to help consumers "make healthy food choices for their kids."

Changes to nutrition labels are long overdue, and it's great that Mrs. Obama is leading the charge to force food manufacturers to provide more accurate information about their products.

But conspicuously absent from the media hype was any mention of the one label that consumers have been crystal clear about wanting, the label that consumers in nearly 60 other countries have but Americans don't-a label that tells us whether or not our cereal or soda or mac & cheese contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Under the proposed new rules, food manufacturers will be required to list more realistic (as in larger) serving sizes, and display the calorie count in large, bold type. The new labels will also provide a more detailed breakdown of the types of sugar contained in products. And instead of listing vitamins A and C, new labels will list vitamin D and potassium, because, the FDA said, it has evidence that "people are not consuming enough of these nutrients to protect against chronic diseases."

Nothing wrong with these changes. But when is the last time you read a petition demanding the FDA list vitamin D on labels? Or a news article about tens, or hundreds of thousands of consumers clamoring for a more accurate breakdown of the sugar content in their foods?

What consumers really want to know is whether or not their food has been genetically engineered. And anyone who's paying attention knows that this issue-labeling of GMOs-has for the past two-and-a-half years dominated the public discourse around food policy and labeling.

In 2007, on the campaign trail in Iowa, then-Senator Barack Obama told supporters, "We'll let folks know if their food has been genetically modified, because Americans should know what they're buying."
He has not honored that campaign promise.

In 2012, during the high-profile California Proposition 37 campaign, a citizens' initiative that would have required mandatory labeling of GMOs in foods, nearly 208,000 people signed our petition to Michelle Obama asking her to remind President Obama of his campaign promise, and to support GMO labeling. Mrs. Obama did not respond.

Proposition 37 was defeated by a mere 1 percent, only after the biotech and food companies spent more than $46 million to defeat it. A similar scenario played out in Washington State in 2013, where I-522, another citizens' ballot initiative, was also defeated by 1 percent. Industry spent a total of $70 million to defeat those two initiatives, $12 million of which was illegally laundered. Industry has spent millions more lobbying state legislators and Congress to prevent state and federal laws requiring the labeling of GMOs in our food. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a multi-billion dollar lobbying group, has even drafted a bill that would preempt states from passing such laws.

In 1992, the FDA cleared the way for GMOs to enter the U.S. food supply, unlabeled, and without independent, pre-market safety testing. We have Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lobbyist-turned-Deputy Commissioner for Policy for the FDA (1991 to 1994), to thank for that decision.

The genetic engineering and food industries claim that GMO foods are safe. Hundreds of medical professionals and scientists dispute that claim. But no one disputes the fact that in order to grow GMO crops, farmers are required to use a stunning array of increasingly toxic pesticides and herbicides. And they must use them in increasing amounts, as weeds and pests build up tolerances.

Scientists have sounded the alarm that these chemicals pose a serious threat to our kids. In addition to counting calories, shouldn't we be counting the chemicals our kids are ingesting? Or at the least, shouldn't food companies be required to tell us if the foods we're eating were produced from GMO crops drenched in pesticides and herbicides?

Polls reveal that 80-93 percent of Americans want GMOs labeled. Congress, the FDA and the Obama Administration refuse to respond. Meanwhile industry spends millions to deprive consumers of this basic information.

If Mrs. Obama is serious about the health and nutrition of our nation's kids, it's time for her to stand up for consumers, stand up to industry, and demand truth and transparency when it comes to labeling the GMOs in our food.

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

Katherine Paul is the communications director for the Organic Consumers Association.

Ronnie Cummins is a veteran activist, author, and organizer. He is the International Director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate, Via Organica. http://www.organicconsumers.org;http://www.viaorganica.org

Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/26-2

VANDANA SHIVA - TREE-HUGGING FOR 40 YEARS - CHIPKO WOMEN STANDING UP

Published on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 by The Asian Age

Women Ecowarriors

by Vandana Shiva

Over the last four decades, I have served the Earth and grassroots ecological movements, beginning with the historic Chipko Movement (Hug the Tree Movement), in the Central Himalaya.

Every movement in which I participated, I noticed that women were the decision-makers — they decided the course of action and even were unrelenting in protecting the land and the sources of their sustenance and livelihoods.

Women who were a part of the Chipko movement were protecting forests because deforestation and logging in Uttarakhand led to floods, draughts, landslides and other such natural disasters. It led to scarcity of fuel and fodder. It led to the disappearance of springs and streams, forcing women to walk longer and further for water.

The dominant paradigm of forestry is based on monocultures of commercial species where forests are seen as timber mines that produce timber and generate revenue and leads to profits. The women of the Chipko Movement taught the world and me that timber, revenue and profits were not the real products of the forest; the real products were soil, water and pure air.

Today, science refers to these as ecological functions of ecosystems. Illiterate women of the Garhwal Himalaya were four decades ahead of the scientists of the world. By 1981, the government was compelled to stop logging in the Central Himalaya.

On April 22, 2002, which is recognised as Earth Day, I was invited by women from a small hamlet named Plachimada in Palghat, Kerala, to join their struggle against Coca Cola which was mining 1.5 million litres of water a day and polluting the water that remained in their wells.

Women were forced to walk 10 kilometres every day in search for clean drinking water. Mylamma, a tribal woman leading the movement, said they would not walk further for water. Coca Cola must stop stealing their water. These women decided to set up a satyagraha (struggle for truth) camp opposite the Coca Cola factory. I too joined them in solidarity and over the years supported them. In 2004, Coca Cola was forced to shut down.

In 1984, a terrible disaster caused by a leak from Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal killed 3,000 people immediately. Still thousands of children are born with disabilities. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow, which refuses to take ownership of responsibility for justice. In 1984, as a response to the Bhopal disaster, I started a campaign, “No more Bhopals, plant a Neem”.

The women of Bhopal were also victims of the disaster. But they did not let their hopes and fight for justice wane. For example, Rashidabi and Champadevi Shukla continued their struggle for justice. They also provide rehabilitation to the children born with disabilities. They have set up a Chingari Trust to honour women fighting corporate injustice. In 2012, they invited me to give the Chingari award to the women fighting against the nuclear power plant at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu.

In 1994, I came to know that the use of neem to control pests and diseases in agriculture has been patented by US department of agriculture and multinational WR Grace. We launched a neem campaign to challenge the biopiracy. More than 100,000 Indians signed to initiate a case in the European Patent Office. I joined hands with Magda Alvoet, the president of the European Greens and Linda Bullard, president of International Foundation for Organic Agriculture to fight the case for 11 years. On March 8, 2005, on International Women’s Day, the European patent office struck down the biopiracy patent.

"When it comes to the sustenance of the economy, women act as experts and providers. Even though women’s work in providing sustenance is the most vital activity, a patriarchal economy treats it as non-work."

Why there’s a trend of women leading ecology movements against deforestation and pollution of water, against toxic and nuclear hazards? I partly believe that in the division of labour, it is women who have been left to look after sustenance — providing food, water, health and care.

When it comes to the sustenance of the economy, women act as both experts and providers. Even though women’s work in providing sustenance is the most vital human activity, a patriarchal economy which defines the economy only as the economy of the marketplace, treats it as non work.

The patriarchal model of the economy is dominated by one figure, the gross domestic product, which is measured on the basis of an artificially created production boundary (if you produce what you consume, you do not produce).

When the ecological crisis created by an ecologically blind economic paradigm leads to the disappearance of forests and water, spread of diseases because of toxics and poisons, and the consequent threat to life and survival, it is women who rise to wake up the society to the crisis, and to defend the Earth and lives. Women are leading the paradigm shift to align the economy with ecology. After all, both are rooted in the word “oikos” — our home.

Not only are women experts in the sustenance economy. They are experts in ecological science through their daily participation in processes that provide sustenance. Their expertise is rooted in lived experience and not in abstract and fragmented knowledge, which cannot see through the connectedness of the web of life.

The rise of masculinist science with Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Bacon led to the domination of reductionist mechanistic science and a subjugation of knowledge systems based on interconnections and relationships. This includes all indigenous knowledge systems and women’s knowledge.

The most violent display of mechanistic science is in the promotion of industrial agriculture, including genetically modified organisms as a solution to hunger and malnutrition. Industrial agriculture uses chemicals developed for warfare as inputs. Genetic engineering is based on the idea of genes as “master molecules” giving unidirectional commands to the rest of the organism. The reality is that living systems are self-organised, interactive and dynamic. The genome is fluid.

As these issues move centrestage in every society, it is women who bring the alternatives through biodiversity and agroecology that offer real solutions to the food and nutrition crisis. As I have learnt over 30 years of building the Navdanya movement, biodiversity produces more than monocultures. Small family farms based on women’s participation provide 75 per cent of the food eaten in the world. Industrial agriculture only produces 25 per cent, while using and destroying 75 per cent of the Earth’s resources.

When it comes to real solutions to real problems faced by the planet and people, it is the subjugated knowledge and invisible work of women based on co-creation and co-production with nature that will show the way to human survival and well being in the future.

© 2014 Asian Age

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; andStaying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/26-1

"GM CROPS: BIGGEST ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER OF ALL TIME" - Prince Charles

Charles in GM 'disaster' warning

Prince Charles has his own organic farm at his Gloucestershire estate

GM crops were damaging Earth's soil and were an experiment "gone seriously wrong", he told the Daily Telegraph.Companies developing genetically modified crops risk creating the biggest environmental disaster "of all time", Prince Charles has warned.

A future reliance on corporations to mass-produce food would drive millions of farmers off their land, he said.

The government said it welcomed all voices in the "important" debate over the future potential role of GM crops.

However, Dr Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said he was "disappointed" by the Prince's comments because "they do not seem to be based on any solid evidence".

"Our experience from over 10 years of GM cultivation shows that GM technology has been found to deliver real environmental and economic benefits," he said.

Mr Little added: "At a time when demand for food and fuel is rising and in the face of growing environmental challenges, we need to find ways to feed an ever-increasing global population."

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BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the Prince's "robust" comments were "likely to rankle with the government", which has given the go-ahead to a number of GM crop trials in the UK since 2000.

"Even for a prince who's a long-established champion of organic farming and critic of GM crops, these are comments which verge on the extreme," our correspondent said.

Prince Charles told the newspaper that huge multi-national corporations involved in developing GM foods were conducting a "gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food would end in "absolute disaster", he warned.

"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future."

What should be being debated was "food security not food production", he said.

He said GM developers might think they would be successful by having "one form of clever genetic engineering after another", but he believed "that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time".

If they think this is the way to go we will end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land    Prince Charles


Prince Charles, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, said relying on big corporations for the mass production of food would not only threaten future food supplies but also force smaller producers out of business.

"If they think this is the way to go, we will end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness," he said.

The prince also told the Telegraph he hoped to see more family-run co-operative farms, with producers working with nature and not against it.

The Prince's comments come at a time of rising world food prices and food shortages.

The biotech industry says that GM technology can help combat world hunger and poverty by delivering higher yields from crops and also reduce the use of pesticides.

'Untenable'

In June, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said the government was ready to argue for a greater role for the technology.

But green groups and aid agencies have doubts about GM technology's effectiveness in tackling world hunger and have concerns about the long-term environmental impact.

Responding to the prince's comments, a spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Safety will always be our top priority on this issue."

Anti-monarchy Campaign group Republic said: "Prince Charles is quickly making his position as heir to the throne untenable with his meddling in politics."


Page last updated at 11:27 GMT, Wednesday, 13 August 2008 12:27 UK


Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7557644.stm

NYT: FARMERS PUSH FOR GE FOOD LABELS

The Push to Label Genetically Modified Products

By AAMENA AHMEDMARCH 22, 2014

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Gerald Cole, an organic farmer in Taylor, Tex., said supporters of G.M.O. labeling could not compete with the lobbying of big agribusinesses.CreditLeslie Boorhem-Stephenson for The Texas Tribune

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When Eric Herm heard in 2005 that genetically modified cottonseeds were the latest innovation on the market, he thought he should plant the crop on his family farm near Lubbock, Tex.

“I was like, ‘What’s so bad about this,’ ” he said of the seeds, which are a cheaper way to help crops resist weed and insect damage. “We’re saving money and labor.”

After learning that the “seeds are injected with the genes of herbicides and pesticides,” Mr. Herm became critical of the product. “I didn’t want to be consuming that,” he said. “And neither would you.”

Now, Mr. Herm is advocating a requirement to include warning labels on consumer products with genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.’s. He is among a small group of farmers and environmental advocates pushing for the labeling of G.M.O. products in Texas. But the push is getting little support from the Republican-dominated state leadership or from major agribusinesses.

“I haven’t had a single constituent mention support for G.M.O. labeling to me,” said State Representative Drew Springer, a Republican member of the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee. Even if a measure were introduced, he added, it would face a difficult road in the Republican-led Legislature.

Continue reading the main storyMr. Herm said it was a struggle to get people’s attention. “Where I live, 90 percent of the people were looking at me like I was saying the aliens are coming,” he said.

G.M.O. products, which are made from planting seeds with engineered DNA, make up about 90 percent of cash crops like cotton, corn and soybeans nationwide, according to the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, which supports labeling. The United States Food and Drug Administration also supports labeling but has said that it should be voluntary because foods with G.M.O.’s are safe.

Maine and Connecticut require G.M.O. products to be labeled, and 26 other states have considered legislation. In Texas, there has been no such proposal, though interest has grown. Austin-based Whole Foods Market (a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune) announced that it would label products with genetically modified ingredients by 2018.

Most farmers oppose G.M.O. labeling because it brings unnecessary attention to the product, which could slow sales, said Gene Hall, a spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau, which represents agricultural producers across Texas, including large agribusinesses. (The Texas Farm Bureau has been a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

“We don’t need to label something that is absolutely safe,” Mr. Hall said.

But activists say the issue is about keeping consumers informed.

“In the U.S., we don’t label dangerous foods — we take it off the marketplace,” said Colin O’Neil, the director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety. “We’re not saying these products are dangerous, either. We’re just saying consumers have the right to know.”

Some labeling proponents say agribusinesses have lobbied against their efforts. “For a long time, these agribusinesses have been incredibly powerful in keeping G.M.O. labeling out of the Legislature,” said Sara Smith, program director of the nonprofit Texas Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization.

Organic farmers like Mr. Herm and Gerald Cole of Taylor, Tex., who support G.M.O. labeling, said their smaller numbers were at a disadvantage against food conglomerates.

“They can lobby Congress for their best interest,” Mr. Cole said. “We just can’t.”

Mr. Hall said he was unaware of the millions spent on lobbying, but added: “There is nothing wrong with it. We’re opposed to labeling, and we’re not afraid to say so.”

aahmed@texastribune.org

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/us/the-push-to-label-genetically-modified-products.html?_r=0