Consolidation of seed companies leading to corporate domination of world food supply. (NaturalNews) Throughout the history of agriculture across the globe, farming has always been a diversified sector of the economy. Small, self-sustaining, family farms were the order of the day in most cultures. Even as small farms grew larger and more specialized over time, many of them still saved seeds or purchased them from other farmers, which kept control of farming in the hands of the people. But today everything has changed, as large chemical and agribusiness firms have acquired or merged with seed companies and other agricultural input companies. They have successfully gained a foothold on genetically-modified (GM) crops with transgenic traits. These primary factors and several others have facilitated a crescendo towards the global domination of agriculture by corporations, and thus the world's food supply.
The dismal state in which we find ourselves today did not come overnight, of course, but it did pick up rapid speed after the introduction of GM crops in the mid-1990s. Prof. Survey Reveals Lack of Transparency on Antibiotic Use In Our Food. This week, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York released the results from a survey of over 60 fast food, retail, production and grocery companies asking them about their policies on the use of antibiotics in meat and poultry production.
The goal of the survey was to evaluate their level of transparency about antibiotic use and to reveal to consumers the extent to which antibiotics are used in their food. “Through my survey, the food industry has provided us valuable information, and with that knowledge we must act,” said Rep. Slaughter in a press release. “I urge consumers to consider today’s findings when shopping, and I urge the FDA and my colleagues in Congress to strengthen our laws in order to fight the growing threat of superbugs. Until we do, the routine use of antibiotics will continue to breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten human health.” The survey data is presented in an easy-to-use color coded format. Rep. The following graphic outlines Rep. Greece's 'potato movement' grows in power - Features. Athens, Greece - When an economy shrinks, prices are meant to go down in response to falling demand. This has not happened in Greece - at least not yet. While the Greek economy shrank by an average of five per cent a year between 2009 and 2011, consumer prices rose by an average 3.7 per cent a year.
The combination of falling revenues and rising prices has led to an explosive political mix. It is not politicians but grassroots activism that has come to address this issue. In April, the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) reported a 24.6 per cent drop in potato prices from March 2011 - the largest ever one-year drop in any commodity. The seminal event of the movement was a free distribution of more than ten tons of spuds in the centre of Greece's northern metropolis, Thessaloniki, on February 5.
A growing movement The Pieria group was formed in late 2007, after a series of wildfires devastated Greece's forests, to provide the local fire service with an early warning system. Eccentric town, Todmorden, growing ALL its own veg. By Vincent Graff Updated: 16:31 GMT, 10 December 2011 Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too. Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds. If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrot plants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.
Today the beds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police station forecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are the cops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Food for thought: Todmorden resident Estelle Brown, a former interior designer, with a basket of home-grown veg Well, that’s not quite correct. ‘I watch ’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott, with a huge grin. For the vegetable-swipers are not thieves. ‘It’s a very ambitious aim. Big Sugar's Sweet Little Lies.
Chris Buzelli On a brisk spring Tuesday in 1976, a pair of executives from the Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in "the forging of public opinion. " The trade group had recently pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in PR history. For nearly a decade, the sugar industry had been buffeted by crisis after crisis as the media and the public soured on sugar and scientists began to view it as a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Industry ads claiming that eating sugar helped you lose weight had been called out by the Federal Trade Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration had launched a review of whether sugar was even safe to eat. The story of sugar, as Tatem told it, was one of a harmless product under attack by "opportunists dedicated to exploiting the consuming public. " Precisely how did the sugar industry engineer its turnaround? Labeling Issues, Revolving Doors, rBGH, Bribery and Monsanto. Monsanto, For Labeling Before They Were Against It An issue of growing concern is the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods [1].
Many have questioned why it is that while consumers in all of Europe and fifty other countries around the world including including Japan, India and even China have the right to know through strict labeling which foods contain GM ingredients and thus to make an informed choice [2] yet consumers in the United States, purportedly the bastion of freedom, democracy and the "free market" in the world are denied this same right. Polls indicate that the great majority of Americans who are aware of the issue want labels [3][4]. Interestingly, Former Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro, in a 1998 interview with the State of the World Forum, asserted unequivocally (in answer to a question about the labeling of GM foods) that: "One can make a reasonable argument that consumers and citizens have a right to know anything they wish to know.
For more on the Act see [20][21] Just Label It: We Have a Right to Know. Why genetically engineered food is dangerous: New report by genetic engineers. Earth Open Source press release 17 June 2012 Aren’t critics of genetically engineered food anti-science? Isn’t the debate over GMOs (genetically modified organisms) a spat between emotional but ignorant activists on one hand and rational GM-supporting scientists on the other? A new report released today, “GMO Myths and Truths”,[1] challenges these claims.
The report presents a large body of peer-reviewed scientific and other authoritative evidence of the hazards to health and the environment posed by genetically engineered crops and organisms (GMOs). Unusually, the initiative for the report came not from campaigners but from two genetic engineers who believe there are good scientific reasons to be wary of GM foods and crops. One of the report’s authors, Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London School of Medicine in the UK, uses genetic engineering for medical applications but warns against its use in developing crops for human food and animal feed.
Notes Key points from the report. Press Statement. For Immediate Release: September 19, 2012Contact: Stacy Malkan, 510-542-9224, stacy@carighttoknow.org Oakland: Genetically engineered corn was linked to mammary tumors, kidney and liver damage and other serious illnesses in the first ever peer-reviewed, long-term animal study of these foods. The findings were published today in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. Read the study here: While numerous 90-day studies have already linked GMO foods to allergies and other health problems, today’s publication marks the first-ever long term animal study on the health effects of the most common type of genetically engineered corn, and comes as California voters consider the Proposition 37 Right to Know initiative to label genetically engineered foods In response to this study, Yes on Proposition 37 California Right to Know Campaign Manager Gary Ruskin released the following statement:
Uncovered, the 'toxic' gene hiding in GM crops: Revelation throws new doubt over safety of foods. EU watchdog reveals approval for GM foods fails to identify poisonous gene54 of the 86 GM plants approved contain the dangerous geneGene found in food for farm animals producing meat, milk and eggsBiotech supporters argue there is no evidence that GM foods are harmful By Sean Poulter, Consumer Affairs Editor Published: 23:20 GMT, 21 January 2013 | Updated: 11:03 GMT, 24 January 2013 A virus gene that could be poisonous to humans has been missed when GM food crops have been assessed for safety.
GM crops such as corn and soya, which are being grown around the world for both human and farm animal consumption, include the gene. A new study by the EU's official food watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has revealed that the international approval process for GM crops failed to identify the gene. A new study conducted by the EU has shown that standard tests for GM foods may be missing a potentially poisonous gene for humans. GMO Food Is Actually Already Labeled If You Know A Few Rules.
Back in 1995, I was party to some discussions about whether about-to-be-released GMO crops should be labeled at the consumer level. It was clear that a failure to do so would look to some like a conspiracy, but we also realized that it would be far too expensive to track the great rivers of grain well enough to be able to label everything accurately. Practicality won the day and GMO foods were never labeled. 15 years later this decision is still being needlessly debated. Why You Can’t Really Track All Grain It does not normally make sense for a farmer to have his/her own harvesting equipment. There are “custom, contract harvesters” who move from South to North during the harvest season.
A “May Contain” Label Might Have Been A Better Choice I actually supported the idea of a “may contain GMO” label, recognizing that things like corn and soybeans are turned into ingredients that are in just about any processed food (corn starch, HFCS, soy protein, soybean oil…). Fruits and Vegetables. Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows. April 25 (Reuters) - Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study. The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.
Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Also on HuffPost: What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters. About a third of the way through this series on GMOs, after a particularly angry conflagration broke out on Twitter, I asked my wife, Beth, if I could tell her what had happened.
I was hoping to exorcise those digital voices from my head. Someone had probably accused me of crimes against humanity, shoddy journalism, and stealing teddy bears from children — I forget the details, thank goodness. But I remember Beth’s response. “No offense,” she said, “but who cares?” It’s a little awkward to admit this, after devoting so much time to this project, but I think Beth was right. The most astonishing thing about the vicious public brawl over GMOs is that the stakes are so low.
I know that to those embroiled in the controversy this will seem preposterous. Let’s start off with a thought experiment: Imagine two alternate futures, one in which genetically modified food has been utterly banned, and another in which all resistance to genetic engineering has ceased. All or nothing. Tell the FDA to label genetically engineered foods! Stand with EWG and the Just Label It campaign today and sign our petition to the FDA demanding that genetically engineered foods are labeled!
Use the form here to add your name and comments to our petition to the FDA. Back to Top As a supporter of Environmental Working Group and the Just Label It campaign, I want to know when I am eating genetically modified food. Most processed foods available in American grocery stores likely contain some genetically engineered ingredients. While the scientific debate about genetically modified crops is ongoing, I want to make informed choices for myself. In 2011, the Center for Food Safety submitted a legal petition to the FDA on behalf of Environmental Working Group and other organizations calling for the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.
Bees Harmed By Neonicotinoid Pesticides, Studies Show. By Kate Kelland LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered ways in which even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees, interfering with their homing abilities and making them lose their way. In two studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides - a class introduced in the 1990s now among the most commonly used crop pesticides in the world.
In recent years, bee populations have been dropping rapidly, partly due to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists also fear pesticides are destroying bee populations, but it is not clear how they are causing damage. Dave Goulson of Stirling University in Scotland, who led the British study, said some bumblebee species have declined hugely. The threat to bee populations also extends to Asia, South America and the Middle East, experts say. Also on HuffPost: Video unavailable due to location. How Chemicals Change Us.
A widely used herbicide acts as a female hormone and feminizes male animals in the wild. Thus male frogs can have female organs, and some male fish actually produce eggs. In a Florida lake contaminated by these chemicals, male alligators have tiny penises. These days there is also growing evidence linking this class of chemicals to problems in humans. These include breast cancer, infertility, low sperm counts, genital deformities, early menstruation and even diabetes and obesity. Philip Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, says that a congenital defect called hypospadias — a misplacement of the urethra — is now twice as common among newborn boys as it used to be. Endocrine disruptors are everywhere. In this campaign year, we are bound to hear endless complaints about excessive government regulation. Shouldn’t our government be as vigilant about threats in our grocery stores as in the mountains of Afghanistan?
Yes, there are uncertainties. Why I'm O.K. with 'Pink Slime' in Ground Beef. (1) Photos of Occupy Food. King Corn: The secrets of high fructose corn syrup. Occupy Farms | Planting the revolution. Small Farms Fight Back: Food and Community Self-Governance. New San Francisco legislation will jump-start urban farming. Don’t box me in: The unstoppable growth of CSA-style produce delivery. Weeding Corporate Power Out of Agricultural Policies: Communities Mobilize for Food and Farm Justice. Food.