THE VP WHO COULDN'T SPELL POTATO - OPENED OUR WORLD TO TODAY'S AGENT ORANGE UNREGULATED GMO FOOD CONTAMINATION

Help stop former Monsanto VP from attaining top position at the FDA - sign the petition

Thursday, February 02, 2012 by: S. D. Wells   

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034847_Michael_Taylor_Monsanto_FDA.html#ixzz1lKVSNSeR

(NaturalNews) The one man who may be responsible for more food related illnesses and deaths than anyone in history, Michael R. Taylor, has just been promoted from US Food Safety Czar to Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the FDA, a position which would enable the giant biotech company Monsanto to silently and legally feed cancer causing vegetables to every living person who is not 100% strictly organic.

President Obama has appointed the former Monsanto Vice President and lobbyist Michael R. Taylor to the throne. This is the same man who was Food Safety Czar for the FDA when Genetically Modified Organisms were allowed into the US food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is like putting a terrorist in charge of the world's food supply. What will the cancer numbers look like in 2016? (http://www.counterpunch.org)

The GMO nightmare all started with the Dan Quayle led FDA/GMO marriage. Under George Bush Senior's Administration from 1989 to 1993, Dan Quayle single-handedly catapulted GMO's into existence through FDA's anti-consumer right-to-know policy, which stated that GMO foods did not have to be labeled or safety tested. Yes, you read that correctly: There is no safety testing required whatsoever to take some Agent Orange pesticide and genetically mutate the seeds of vegetables in a chemical laboratory so that nothing on planet earth will eat the plant that grows from the ground except for all the humans who have no idea what happened.

Michael Taylor is part of a revolving door at the FDA, where Monsanto Execs just come and go as they please. First, Michael R. Taylor was an assistant to the FDA commissioner. Then he left to work for a law firm in the 1980's to help gain FDA approval of Monsanto's artificial growth hormone (rGBH), which is directly linked to cancer. Then he became deputy commissioner of the FDA in 1991, and was later re-appointed to the FDA in 2009 by Obama. He is the food villain who tried his best to keep this "malignant milk of the turn of the century" from being labeled.

Michael Taylor is the epitome of everything Monsanto represents. Taylor is like a vehicle for Monsanto's patenting of seeds and global domination of farming. He implements the government's "favorable" agricultural biotech policies because it's much more of a financially sure shot to use RoundUp in food than to farm organically and ethically. If the investments aren't paying enough at the corporation, Execs just switch over to Federal Regulations and write some new Legislation based on "tainted research", which allows them to pile more toxins on the American public and bankroll off it when they flip back to the corporate side.

The 4-headed Administration of thieves

This marks the pinnacle so far of a long ascent of evil profiteering and corporate executives making it to the top. It's like one big 4-headed company of thieves: The FDA, EPA, Supreme Court, and Monsanto's Board of Executives, and these organization hoppers include Clarence Thomas, Michael R. Taylor, Ann Veneman, and Linda Fisher, who conveniently bounce back and forth between positions at Monsanto and the EPA.

Here are just a few examples in case you didn't know: Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. Bush in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Anne Veneman, was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest, Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The prior Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle Pharmaceuticals.

Monsanto has the money to win in court and/or settle with anyone who opposes them. Monsanto has been sued and has settled multiple times for damaging the health of its employees and residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning. A report released in June 2011 linked glyphosate (RoundUp) to birth defects in frog and chicken embryos at dilutions much lower than those used in typical agricultural spraying (including home gardens). (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22625.cfm)

Silent Anti-Nutritional Terrorism

FDA scientists once contended that genetic modification of the food supply is the "single most radical and potentially dangerous threat to public health." In addition to producing GMO foods, Monsanto pushes dozens of other toxic products such as aspartame, bovine growth hormone, Agent Orange, Dioxin, DDT, and Roundup - all of which cause birth defects and deformities.

Constitutional checks and balances are gone for the most part in the United States, especially when it comes to writing ethical policies regarding the environment, food, medicine and drinking water. The FDA and Corporations should not bleed over into one another, and the whole concept of lobbying is just a glorified form of "legal bribery."

Monsanto conveniently tramples on antitrust violations, which the Justice Department has supposedly been investigating for years. The Supreme Court of France found Monsanto guilty of falsely advertising Roundup as "biodegradable" and "environmentally friendly." The New York State Attorney General sued Monsanto and won in 1997 for claiming RoundUp was, "safer than table salt and "practically non-toxic" to mammals, birds, and fish. More than enough scientific research reveals glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp, is "acutely toxic to fish and birds and can kill beneficial insects and soil organisms that maintain ecological balance."

On two other occasions, the EPA has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.

This is not just another case of a ruthless tyrant trying to become the CEO of some big company, this could be end of organic food as we know it. If Taylor takes the position of Head of the FDA, have no doubts that keeping your own seeds to any eatable plant will soon be illegal. This will endanger all of humanity by "putting all of our eggs in one basket," because GMO seeds die after one year of growth; therefore, if a Nuclear bomb wipes out their facilities and seed storages, we would have zero growth of food from that point on. That's mass genocide. Plus, illnesses from GMO foods include changes in major organs, hormonal, immune, digestive, and reproductive systems.

Does FDA stand for "Food as Drugs for America?"

Monsanto and GMO toxic bioengineering dominates the production of food through the DNA manipulation and mutation of seeds, and the unethical growing and breeding of animals, fish, and crops in the USA right now at 80% or higher: Cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, "farm raised fish" (which means they're all juiced up with hormones and antibiotics in an overcrowded lake), milk, corn, soybeans, alfalfa (as chem-feed for cows), canola, tobacco and cotton (to infect the skin since the skin is your largest organ). GMO should be called GDDO - "genetically diseased and dying" organisms. (http://www.seedsofdeception.com)

What will America and the rest of the world be like when food is 95 - 98% GMO? It's not that far away if Taylor solidifies his FDA position. How high will that drive the price of organic food? This is more powerful than bombs. This is population control. Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company now basically owns Monsanto ... another big surprise, right? Combine that with FDA control over legislation and talk about the "evil tri-fecta!"

Consumers are winning some battles, however. In the wake of mass consumer pressure, major retailers such as Safeway, Publix, Wal-Mart, and Kroger and even Starbucks banned products containing Monsanto's rBGH milk. Vegetarians and vegans are on an accelerated upward population trend. The ratios have changed drastically since the anti-GMO movement began to snowball in the early 2000's, but this corporate co-op by the powers that be in Washington D.C. is a most dispiccable example of foxes guarding the chickens.

Help prevent the food Czar from becoming FDA's Senior Advisor. This petition already has over 60,000 signatures. We need 75,000 signatures. Sign the petition now.It's not too late to prevent this latest atrocity to the future of food!

Here's the link:
(http://signon.org)

There's no time to waste!

Sources for this article include

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2515

http://www.counterpunch.org

http://signon.org

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/

http://trevoc.webs.com/evilmonsanto.htm

http://www.indiepundit.com

http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/facts.shtml

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22625.cfm

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/effec-cn.htm

http://www.mothering.com

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15588.cfm

http://www.seedsofdeception.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034847_Michael_Taylor_Monsanto_FDA.html#ixzz1lKV8yVID

MONSANTO TO ORGANIC FARMERS: SURRENDER DOROTHY!!

What Now?

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto

by RONNIE CUMMINS

"The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must."
– Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for "coexistence" with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

To pressure Whole Foods Market and the nation’s largest supermarket chains to voluntarily adopt truth-in-labeling practices sign here, and circulate this petition widely: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22309.cfm

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and "seed purity," gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the "conditional deregulation" of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of "conditional deregulation," this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

In exchange for allowing Monsanto’s premeditated pollution of the alfalfa gene pool, WFM wants "compensation." In exchange for a new assault on farmworkers and rural communities (a recent large-scale Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles farm workers’ and rural residents’ risk of getting cancer), WFM expects the pro-biotech USDA to begin to regulate rather than cheerlead for Monsanto. In payment for a new broad spectrum attack on the soil’s crucial ability to provide nutrition for food crops and to sequester dangerous greenhouse gases (recent studies show that Roundup devastates essential soil microorganisms that provide plant nutrition and sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases), WFM wants the Biotech Bully of St. Louis to agree to pay "compensation" (i.e. hush money) to farmers "for any losses related to the contamination of his crop."

In its email of Jan. 21, 2011 WFM calls for "public oversight by the USDA rather than reliance on the biotechnology industry," even though WFM knows full well that federal regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require pre-market safety testing, nor labeling; and that even federal judges have repeatedly ruled that so-called government "oversight" of Frankencrops such as Monsanto’s sugar beets and alfalfa is basically a farce. At the end of its email, WFM admits that its surrender to Monsanto is permanent: "The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well True coexistence is a must."

Why is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack’s previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as "Governor of the Year" in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.’s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it’s time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called "coexistence" between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto’s unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called "natural" foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI’s sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

From their "business as usual" perspective, successful lawsuits against GMOs filed by public interest groups such as the Center for Food Safety; or noisy attacks on Monsanto by groups like the Organic Consumers Association, create bad publicity, rattle their big customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix and Safeway; and remind consumers that organic crops and foods such as corn, soybeans, and canola are slowly but surely becoming contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.

Whole Food’s Dirty Little Secret: Most of the So-Called "Natural" Processed Foods and Animal Products They Sell Are Contaminated with GMOs

The main reason, however, why Whole Foods is pleading for coexistence with Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and the rest of the biotech bullies, is that they desperately want the controversy surrounding genetically engineered foods and crops to go away. Why? Because they know, just as we do, that 2/3 of WFM’s $9 billion annual sales is derived from so-called "natural" processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. We and our allies have tested their so-called "natural" products (no doubt WFM’s lab has too) containing non-organic corn and soy, and guess what: they’re all contaminated with GMOs, in contrast to their certified organic products, which are basically free of GMOs, or else contain barely detectable trace amounts.

Approximately 2/3 of the products sold by Whole Foods Market and their main distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI) are not certified organic, but rather are conventional (chemical-intensive and GMO-tainted) foods and products disguised as "natural."

Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by UNFI and Whole Foods, employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called "natural" food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations such as Dean Foods, threatens the growth of the organic movement.

Covering Up GMO Contamination: Perpetrating "Natural" Fraud

Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as "natural," and those nutritionally/environmentally superior and climate-friendly products that are "certified organic."

Retail stores like WFM and wholesale distributors like UNFI have failed to educate their customers about the qualitative difference between natural and certified organic, conveniently glossing over the fact that nearly all of the processed "natural" foods and products they sell contain GMOs, or else come from a "natural" supply chain where animals are force-fed GMO grains in factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called "natural" ingredients. With the exception of the "grass-fed and grass-finished" meat sector, most "natural" meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs, and confined, entirely, or for a good portion of their lives, in CAFOs.

Whole Foods and UNFI are maximizing their profits by selling quasi-natural products at premium organic prices. Organic consumers are increasingly left without certified organic choices while genuine organic farmers and ranchers continue to lose market share to "natural" imposters. It’s no wonder that less than 1% of American farmland is certified organic, while well-intentioned but misled consumers have boosted organic and "natural" purchases to $80 billion annually-approximately 12% of all grocery store sales.

The Solution: Truth-in-Labeling Will Enable Consumers to Drive So-Called "Natural" GMO and CAFO-Tainted Foods Off the Market

There can be no such thing as "coexistence" with a reckless industry that undermines public health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. There is no such thing as coexistence between GMOs and organics in the European Union. Why? Because in the EU there are almost no GMO crops under cultivation, nor GM consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Because under EU law, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GMOs; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as they are safety-tested and labeled. Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to purchase or consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by a Monsanto executive when GMOs first came on the market: "If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

The biotech industry and Organic Inc. are supremely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don’t want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont – the same people who brought you toxic pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from getting a public discussion in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know what’s in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called "Citizens United" case gave big corporations and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Perfectly dramatizing the "Revolving Door" between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With big money controlling Congress and the media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

The Organic Consumers Association, joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, has just launched a nationwide Truth-in-Labeling campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans.

Utilizing scientific data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure giant supermarket chains (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Supervalu, and Publix) and natural food retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to voluntarily implement "truth-in-labeling" practices for GMOs and CAFO products; while simultaneously organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling ordinances – similar to labeling laws already in effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens. If local and state government bodies refuse to take action, wherever possible we must attempt to gather sufficient petition signatures and place these truth-in-labeling initiatives directly on the ballot in 2011 or 2012. If you’re interesting in helping organize or coordinate a Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling campaign in your local community, sign up here: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

To pressure Whole Foods Market and the nation’s largest supermarket chains to voluntarily adopt truth-in-labeling practices sign here, and circulate this petition widely: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22309.cfm

Source:   http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/01/28/the-organic-elite-surrenders-to-monsanto/

CALIFORNIA SNOWS...........PESTICIDES BLIZZARDS DESTROY DRINKING WATER

No, that’s not snow: Pesticides coat California’s Central Valley

By Verena Radulovic

1 Feb 2012 7:37 AM

Photo by Verena Radulovic.

“See that, see that?! … Oooh, something is going on. They are spraying tonight.” A large cylindrical truck whooshed past us.

I am driving along a state road with Becky, a local activist, who is narrating from behind the wheel. “I once stuck around to see them spray and I had to turn the car around and get out of there, the smell was so overpowering.”

We pull over and I hop out to get a close-up look at the orange groves. I am in California’s Central Valley, America’s fruit basket, where agriculture is king.

Becky Quintana is waiting patiently in the car for me as I crouch down to inspect an orange tree. The leathery green leaves were splashed with white pesticide residue, like a Jackson Pollack canvas would be. It is early December, close to the holidays, one would be forgiven for mistaking the white splotches that covered the trees for Christmas flocking. But it turns out it’s like this year round — the chemical flecks a reminder of the high economic stakes involved in delivering an end product that is shiny, bright, and perfectly spherical.

‘There’s a lot riding on it.” Becky explains. “The fruit pickers bring them to the warehouses where the oranges are washed and waxed to look the way you see them in the supermarket. But most of the time,” she nods towards the fields, “they don’t come off the tree looking like that.”

Decades of applied pesticides and fertilizers have delivered high yield, immaculate-looking fruit to many of the supermarkets in the U.S. and to the far corners of the globe, but not without a local cost. Heavy pesticide and fertilizer use in Central Valley orchards that produce household staples such as oranges, peaches, nectarines, grapes, olives, and walnuts has contaminated local community drinking water.

But pesticides and fertilizers are only part of the problem. The primary groundwater contaminant in the region is nitrate, which can also be traced back to Central Valley’s other reigning ruler: Dairy. Interspersed between the acres of golden fruit, behemoth factories house hundreds, sometimes thousands, of cows. This combination of fertilizers, animal factory waste and old, leaky septic systems cause high levels of nitrate that exceed state and federal health standards and can cause death in infants and cancer in adults. The groundwater is also infused with arsenic, DBCP, dangerous levels of chlorine, and bacteria — all of which cause short and long-term illnesses.

Valeriana, a local resident from Tooleville, in her kitchen. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

Years ago, my good friend Laurel Firestone co-founded an organization called the Community Water Center (CWC) to bring attention to the water contamination in the region and to advocate for change. I finally visited her and learned more about the impacts of CWC’s work.

She picked me up from the Fresno airport late in the afternoon. By the time we headed south to her home, the sun had already departed the sky. As we drove along the inky highway, a sudden stench, the kind that exercises your gag reflexes, filled the car.

“Dairies,” she said, smiling as we drove alongside one. “Sometimes you can see the manure practically spilling out of the pens onto the road, there is so much of it.”

“I think we should have a scratch and sniff sticker to hand out so others can really experience what it is like to live near one,” said Susana De Anda, CWC’s other co-founder.

So, what does contaminated drinking water look like? Frighteningly, in most cases, no different from safe drinking water. The tap water in Laurel’s kitchen in Visalia, Calif., looked clear and inviting but was laced with 123 Tricholoropropane, a carcinogen. Bottled water is a fixture in almost every home, regardless of income level, yet those who are impacted the hardest are usually low-income Latinos, mostly farmworker immigrants who are the backbone of the area’s agricultural labor force. Almost 20 percent of the population lives in poverty and many residents spend up to a fifth of their income on bottled water, which is in addition to the $60 a month they must spend to have contaminated “drinking water” delivered to their home in the first place. In some cases, residents pay an additional $70 monthly water fee for sewage.

“My kids used to get rashes after taking a shower,” relayed Veronica Mendoza, a local resident and activist from Cutler.  And even if you don’t break out in welts after bathing, “you are still inhaling the toxins through the steam of the shower,” said Rose Francis, an attorney at CWC. To make matters worse, as Becky noted, many people think that boiling the water will rid it of nitrates when in fact doing so triples the concentration.

Veronica in her home, preparing dinner. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

The difference between water delivery systems intended for crops and those intended for people is stark. Take the town of Seville as an example. Within the same two square miles, one reservoir for crop irrigation is a wide human-made river filled with clear water ready to be dispersed by an automated dam. The water delivery systems for homes in this particular community, while recently retrofitted, is still surrounded by thigh-high weeds leading to a dirty stream, where makeshift PVC piping inches along the muddy, shallow bottom.

Reservoir intended for crops, not residents. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

View of local drinking water delivery system in Seville. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

Drinking water pipe with unfunded infrastructure applications in the bacground. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

The drinking water infrastructure in such communities is often expensive to retrofit. Many towns have decentralized septic systems, which are cumbersome and costly to link to a more centralized water delivery system — or simply costly to replace. Since water infrastructure projects are so politically charged, marginalized communities often find their drinking water improvement projects tangled in the bureaucratic fray.  It can take years to get a project approved.

CWC has stepped in at all stages of effort to improve drinking water quality in the Central Valley, from testifying to policymakers to community organizing to working to get local projects funded. CWC’s work is especially challenging because of the delicate social and economic relationship between the agricultural industry and local communities whose jobs depend on it.

Messaging as part of the Community Water Center's recent campaign. (Photo by Verena Radulovic.)

In the five years since CWC opened its doors, small wins have started to emerge that are significant for creating lasting solutions to some of these entrenched problems. CWC staff told me they are beginning to see changes in the way Big Ag approaches the issue of contaminated drinking water and the way residents come together to advocate for changes to improve their livelihoods.

While I was flying home and had time to digest what I saw, two things stood out to me. First, I was struck by how residents who lived in towns with contaminated drinking water were not afraid to work with CWC and advocate for change, despite the fact that they, or their families and neighbors were often undocumented workers. Second, I wondered whether or not we consumers, who are far removed from seeing the firsthand impacts of how our food is grown, would change our purchasing habits if we really knew the full story. As soon as it was time for me to go to the grocery store; this time I veered straight for the organic section.

A version of this post originally appeared on Verena Radulovic’s blog.

Verena Radulovic is a photographer based in Washington D.C. with a focus on documentary and travel photography. For more of her work, visit her website.

Source:  http://grist.org/industrial-agriculture/no-thats-not-snow-pesticides-coat-californias-central-valley/

USDA & BIG AG BUILT AROUND PESTICIDE (i.e. Agent Orange) AND BIOTECH PROFIT$$$

Monsanto’s new seeds could be a tech dead end 

By Tom Laskawy

30 Jan 2012 9:02 AM

This is how corn is planted on industrial-sized farms. (Photo by Minnemom.)

When I wrote recently about the next generation of genetically engineered seeds, I was in truth referring to the next next generation. The fact is that the next actual generation of seeds is already out of the lab and poised for approval by the USDA.

And I’m not talking about Monsanto’s recently approved “drought-tolerant” seeds, which the USDA itself has observed are no more drought-tolerant than existing conventional hybrids.

No, the “exciting” new seeds are simply resistant to more than one kind of pesticide. Rather than resisting Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup alone, they will now also be resistant to Dow AgroScience’s pesticide 2,4-D (Component of AGENT ORANGE -Clean Food Earth Woman) .

“A new pesticide,“ you say. “How exciting!” Except 2,4-D, despite its catchy name, has been around since World War II. Not only is it one of the most commonly used pesticides in the world, but it came to further prominence in certain circles when it was incorporated as a main ingredient in Agent Orange.

Indeed, as with research into new antibiotics, research into new — potentially safer — pesticides has come to a virtual standstill. Like the drug pipeline, the pesticide pipeline has run dry. Instead, biotech companies are going back to the older, more toxic chemicals, like 2,4-D, for inspiration.

And while you’d expect opposition to these new products from the likes of Tom Philpott of Mother Jones or Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, one place you might not expect to see it is the pages of the influential, peer-reviewed journal BioScience.

And yet there it is! Led by David Mortensen, a team of scientists from Penn State, Montana State, and the University of New Hampshire published a paper that describes the effects on agriculture from an over-reliance on glyphosate and an overuse of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. It also discusses at length the risks of using new seeds that “stack” resistance to various pesticides into one genetically engineered package.

In short, they say that you can’t believe Monsanto and Dow when they hype gyphosate resistance plus 2,4-D resistance as two great tastes that taste great together. The two companies are promising to eliminate the growing superweed menace — the one that has caused farmers to abandon thousands of acres of prime farmland and to return to older, more toxic pesticides to protect their crops.

What these scientists conclude is that with so many weeds resistant to glyphosate already, it won’t take long for them to develop resistance to 2,4-D as well.  According to the study’s authors, almost half of the nearly 40 species of weeds that are already resistant to two pesticides have arisen since 2005 (i.e. since the Roundup Ready era began). In short, the crisis Monsanto and Dow are promising to head off is already here.

There are other problems with 2,4-D, such as a strong link to cancer and a much greater tendency to drift on the wind (and thus contaminate nearby fields and waterways) — problems that the development of the less toxic, less volatile glyphosate was supposed to have “solved.” Yet now, thanks to Big Ag’s over-reliance on these genetically engineered one-hit wonders, which encouraged farmers to use too much glyphosate too often, we’re back to square one — or rather to square toxic.

There is, however, an alternative — and one that doesn’t require a total transition to organic agriculture (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Mortensen and his team describe in detail a practice called Integrated Weed Management (IWM). Like its sibling, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), IWM does involve the use of chemical pesticides. But it’s a judicious use that can act as a last resort rather than a first line of defense. As the paper states:

IWM integrates tactics, such as crop rotation, cover crops, competitive crop cultivars, the judicious use of tillage, and targeted herbicide application, to reduce weed populations and selection pressures that drive the evolution of resistant weeds.

It’s designed for production agriculture and would most likely increase farmer profits, since farmers would get the benefit of reduced seed and pesticide costs and no real loss of productivity. But, as with the climate-friendly agriculture I discussed the other day, you’re unlikely to see IWM embraced by Big Ag any time soon.

The USDA, along with the entire large-scale agriculture economy, is built around the profits of pesticide and biotech companies. You need only watch the USDA approve new genetically engineered products — which the agency admits represents a threat to other forms of agriculture — to see how deep in the tank to these companies our government is.

Tom Philpott observed that with this latest development, agriculture is at “a crossroads.” I disagree. I would say that if the USDA approves this new multiple pesticide-resistant GMO seed as it’s expected to, large-scale agriculture in the country will have reached a true dead end.

A 17-year veteran of both traditional and online media, Tom is a founder and Executive Director of the Food & Environment Reporting Network and a Contributing Writer at Grist covering food and agricultural policy. Tom’s long and winding road to food politics writing passed through New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Florence, Italy and Philadelphia (which has a vibrant progressive food politics and sustainable agriculture scene, thank you very much). In addition to Grist, his writing has appeared online in the American Prospect, Slate, the New York Times and The New Republic. He is on record as believing that wrecking the planet is a bad idea. Follow him on Twitter.

Source:  http://grist.org/industrial-agriculture/monsantos-new-seeds-could-be-a-tech-dead-end/

BILL GATES IN TOTAL DENIAL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PROVING GMO DAMAGE

Bill Gates wants to solve hunger caused by climate change with GMOs 

By Joseph Romm

30 Jan 2012 4:04 PM

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Bill Gates is one very confused billionaire philanthropist.

He understands global warming is a big problem — indeed, his 2012 Foundation Letter even frets about the  grave threat it poses to food security. But he just doesn’t want to do very much now to stop it from happening.

He loves techno-fixes like geoengineering and, as we’ll see, genetically modified food. Rather than investing in cost-effective emissions reduction strategies today, or in renewable energy technologies that are rapidly moving down the cost curve, he explains that the reason he invests so much in nuclear research and development is “the good news about nuclear is that there has hardly been any innovation.” Seriously!

His letter includes the ominous chart above, and he warns of the dire consequences of climate change:

Meanwhile, the threat of climate change is becoming clearer. Preliminary studies show that the rise in global temperature alone could reduce the productivity of the main crops by over 25 percent. Climate change will also increase the number of droughts and floods that can wipe out an entire season of crops. More and more people are raising familiar alarms about whether the world will be able to support itself in the future, as the population heads toward a projected 9.3 billion by 2050.

Strong stuff.

And yet, as the AP reported this week, the wealthiest of all Americans gets very prickly if you don’t wholeheartedly endorse his techno-fix, adaptation-centric approach to dealing with this oncoming disaster:

Bill Gates has a terse response to criticism that the high-tech solutions he advocates for world hunger are too expensive or bad for the environment: Countries can embrace modern seed technology and genetic modification or their citizens will starve …
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent about $2 billion in the past five years to fight poverty and hunger in Africa and Asia, and much of that money has gone toward improving agricultural productivity. Gates doesn’t apologize for his endorsement of modern agriculture or sidestep criticism of genetic modification. He told The Associated Press that he finds it ironic that most people who oppose genetic engineering in plant breeding live in rich nations that he believes are responsible for global climate change that will lead to more starvation and malnutrition for the poor.
Resistance to new technology is “again hurting the people who had nothing to do with climate change happening,” Gates said.

The real irony is that most people who diss efficiency and renewables and aggressive greenhouse-gas mitigation, like Gates, live in rich nations that are responsible for global climate change that will lead to more starvation and malnutrition for the poor.

Where is the story that says “countries to embrace existing technology to reduce emissions or their citizens will starve,” or “resistance to aggressive low-carbon technology deployment is again hurting the people who had nothing to do with climate change happening”?

This is not a blog on genetic modification, so I’ll just quote the AP story:

Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, said everyone wants to see things get better for hungry people, but genetically modified plants are more likely to make their developers rich than feed the poor. The seed is too expensive and has a high failure rate, he said. Better ways to increase yields would be increasing the fertility of soil by adding organic matter or combining plants growing in the same field to combat pests, he said.
The biggest problem with those alternatives, Freese said, is the same one that Gates cited in high-tech research: A lack of money for development.

I will say that while you can make drought-tolerant crops, I seriously doubt that you can make Dust-Bowl-tolerant crops — and so without mitigation, Gates’ efforts will likely have only a marginal impact on reducing the utterly preventable catastrophe.

I applaud Gates for warning people about the threat that climate change poses to billions of people. Here’s another chart his letter has on who will be harmed most by rising food prices:

But the fact is, as Oxfam and others have made clear, global warming is poised to make food vastly more expensive, which will be devastating to the world’s poor no matter how much money Gates dumps into GM crops.

Note: See past Grist coverage of the Gates Foundation’s involvement with agriculture in the developing world here, here, and here.

Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Source:    http://grist.org/food/bill-gates-wants-to-solve-hunger-caused-by-climate-change-with-gmos/

MONSANTO'S $3 BILLION COERCION - PRESSURING MEDIA NOT TO REPORT TRUTH ON THEM

Documentary on Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (BGH, BST), and its human health risks....RoundUp herbicide..... Nutrasweet.....censoring news to American People. Reporters threatened to be fired, retaliation, whistle blower status denied because, "falsifying news is NOT illegal in the United States....."

Here's an interesting story on food production and on what passes for news in this country. Drink up!

http://axiomatica.org/myvideos/video/130/Monsanto-&-Cancer-Milk:-FOX-NEWS-KILLS-STORY-&-FIRES-Reporters

OUT DAMNED PESTICIDES!!!!!

Published on Monday, January 30, 2012 by Common Dreams

More Damning Evidence Points to Pesticide as Cause of Mass Bee Deaths

Bayer-produced imidacloprid harmful to bees even at very low levels

- Common Dreams staff

A new study published in Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature by a leading bee expert provides damning evidence that a widely used pesticide, even at low levels, is responsible for the recent catastrophic decline in honey bees. Dr. Jeff Pettis of the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD led the study.

Colony collapse disorder, as this phenomenon is known, has been getting worse since 2006.

The news has brought renewed calls for these pesticides, which only became widely used in the 1990s, to be banned as honey bees are key to human’s survival – pollinating 70 per cent of the crops which produce most of the world’s food.

The pesticide that the study (pdf) looked at was imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides worldwide. It is neonicotinoid insecticide produced by Bayer CropScience.Findings give credence to fears that neonicotinoids are behind a worldwide decline in honey bees. (photo: Samantha G)

* * *

The Independent reports:

Compelling new evidence from the US government's top bee expert [Dr Jeffrey Pettis] that modern pesticides may be a major cause of collapsing bee populations led to calls yesterday for the chemicals to be banned. [...]
Researchers found that bees deliberately exposed to minute amounts of the pesticide were, on average, three times as likely to become infected when exposed to a parasite called nosema as those that had not. The findings, which have taken more than three years to be published, add weight to concern that a new group of insecticides called neonicotinoids are behind a worldwide decline in honey bees, along with habitat and food loss, by making them more susceptible to disease. [...]
"The science is now clear, bees poisoned by neonicotinoid pesticides are much more likely to die from disease, gather less food and produce fewer new bees."Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity, is calling for a ban on the controversial pesticides. Its director, Matt Shardlow, said yesterday: "The science is now clear, bees poisoned by neonicotinoid pesticides are much more likely to die from disease, gather less food and produce fewer new bees." He added: "Buglife's 2009 review of the science of environmental impacts from neonicotinoid pesticides showed that there was serious cause for concern. We called for a ban then, and as subsequent research has only added to concerns, including the revelation that neonicotinoids make bees prone to a diseased death, we are repeating our call for these toxins to be banned."
The Government needs to take urgent action, said Tim Lovett, of the British Beekeepers Association. He backs the findings of the new research: "Their conclusions are right ... here is some data that would appear to suggest links between widely used pesticides and pathogens."

* * *

In October CNN reported:

The EPA has based its approval of neonicotinoids on the fact that the amounts found in pollen and nectar were low enough to not be lethal to the bees -- the only metric they have to measure whether to approve a pesticide or not. But studies have shown that at low doses, the neonicotinoids have sublethal effects that impair bees' learning and memory. The USDA's chief researcher, Jeff Pettis, told me in 2008 that pesticides were definitely "on the list" as a primary stressor that could make bees more vulnerable to other factors, like pests and bacteria.

* * *

The new study puts the "low enough to not be lethal to the bees" under scrutiny.

This is potentially game-changing research for understanding Colony Collapse Disorder.Last year Tom Philpott wrote on Grist about a report in the Independent showing:

... Pettis at the USDA’s very own Bee Research Laboratory completed research two years ago suggesting that even extremely low levels of exposure to neonicotinoids makes bees more vulnerable to harm from common pathogens.

Philpott noted:

Bayer's miracle - "A simple method of insect control consists of drenching the soil around a tree with a product containing Imidacloprid."This is potentially game-changing research for understanding Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists have been focusing on the interaction between the Nosema fungus and a virus called Iridoviridae as the culprit. Pettis’ research seems to suggest that neonicotinoids play a role, too — and at levels so low that researchers may be overlooking them.
So, let’s get this straight. The chief scientist at the top U.S. government bee-science institute completed research two years ago implicating a widely used, EPA-approved pesticide in what can plausibly be called an ecological catastrophe — the possible extinction of honeybees, which pollinate a huge portion of U.S. crops. Why are we just now hearing about this — and why are we only hearing about it through an obscure documentary filtered through a British newspaper?

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