Www.nfu.org./images/stories/January2012_Farmers_Share.pdf. Monsanto hires Blackwater to monitor GMO bloggers. By Bonnie Bucqueroux on October 4, 2010 If ever two corporations deserved each other, it’s Monsanto and Blackwater, now called Xe in the hope that you cannot pronounce it.
According to Digital Journal, Monsanto finally admitted to hiring Blackwater, not only to keep watch for the safety of personnel overseas, but to monitor blogs of people who might not be fond of the corporations relentless efforts to feed us GMO food without our knowing. Blackwater is famous for hiring former Green Berets and CIA officers to do pretty much what corporations want them to do. (Don’t ask and don’t tell or we will have to kill you.) Peripatetic Blackwater founder Erik Prince, the former Michigander who took his share of his parents fortune to create a company that reads like a bad Tom Clancy novel, has since moved to Abu Dhabi. Monsanto is famous for heavy-handed methods to promote its Frankenfoods. Have I ruined your appetite? Former antitrust chief: Meatpacking industry is unfair. “When you have that high a level of concentration, there’s an imbalance of power.
There’s just not a level playing field.” That’s what J. A farm bill in 2012? Don’t hold your breath. The “smoking ruins” of the “Secret Farm Bill” aren’t a very fun place to be.
Your tour of the site includes proposed cuts to conservation programs, reductions in federal nutrition programs, and problematic expansions of crop insurance, including the creation of a controversial new subsidy known as “shallow loss insurance” that would guarantee farmer income in the event of small drops in sky-high commodity prices. There’s also all that exhausting post-hype fallout raining down. Those motivated souls who paid attention to the Secret Farm Bill late last year are understandably reluctant to re-enter the area. The World According to Monsanto. There's nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower.
Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs. It's more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Monsanto’s long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects.
What's on the Food Politics Agenda for 2012? Here's What to Expect. The FDA's Christmas Present for Factory Farms. On Dec. 22, while even the nerdiest observers were thinking more about Christmas plans than food-safety policy, the FDA snuck a holiday gift to the meat industry into the Federal Register. The agency announced it had essentially given up any pretense of regulating antibiotic abuse on factory farms, at least for the time being. Wired's diligent Maryn McKenna has the background. She reports that way back in 1977—when livestock farming was much less industrialized than it is today—the FDA announced its intention to limit use of key antibiotics on animal farms. The reason: By that time, it was already obvious that routine use of these drugs would generate antibiotic-resistant pathogens that endanger humans. In the decades since, the agency has ruminated and mulled, appointed committees and consulted experts, all the while delaying making a final decision on the matter.
As McKenna demonstrates, the industry has shown no signs it will "volunteer" to cut back on antibiotics. Maria Rodale: Why the Farm Bill Matters. By guest blogger Amy Blankstein of Just Food, a non-profit that turns "food deserts" (i.e., neighborhoods underserved by supermarkets and other food retailers) into "islands of sustainability. " United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
A Grist Special Series. The Farm Bill is a huge piece of legislation that literally shapes the American farm and food landscape. Historic Changes in the Lower Food Web of Lake Michigan. Oran Hesterman - Fair Food: A Recipe for Change. Organic Processing Industry Structure. Organic Processing Industry Structure The development of the USDA National Organic Standard in place of differing state/regional standards was widely predicted to accelerate trends of increasing consolidation in this sector.
The first draft of the standard was released in 1997; what changes in ownership and control have since occurred? Click to zoom (requires latest version of Silverlight in some browsers) PDF version of Organic Industry Structure: Acquisitions & Alliances, Top 100 Food Processors in North AmericaMost acquisitions of organic processors occurred between December, 1997 when the draft USDA standard was released, and its full implementation in October, 2002. Few companies identify these ownership ties on product labels.1 Heinz acquired a 19.5% stake in Hain Celestial in 1999 while also transferring ownership of their Earth's Best brand, but sold all of its Hain Celestial stock in 2005.