Raw Milk Debate Is White Hot

Posted on May 17, 2012 by tom

Raw Milk Debate Is White Hot

Written by Steve Holt, TakePart
May 16, 2012

The fight over the type of milk Americans can drink is getting raw. Earlier this week, supporters of unpasteurized milk rallied outside a Minneapolis courthouse where farmer Alvin Schlangen was scheduled to face trial. His crime? Delivering raw milk to more than 100 consumers who requested it.

The protestors, many of them moms whose homes serve as “drop sites” for food-buying clubs that distribute raw milk, say limitations on the sale and interstate transportation of the beverage trample on the rights of consumers to do business with their neighbors and buy what they want. At the Minneapolis rally, supporters signed a “Declaration of Food Independence” to demonstrate their “non-compliance against what they deem ‘unjust’ regulations,” according to the organization.

Schlangen’s is the latest case in an ongoing battle between advocates for unpasteurized milk and state and federal health officials. One side says it only wants the freedom to consume milk free of “adulteration,” contending that raw milk is actually healthier than pasteurized milk. Dairy farmers, proponents say, should be able to sell directly to consumers without going through another level of processing.

Opponents, including state and national public health officials, say raw milk is unsafe, evidenced by more than 2,000 reported illnesses in the last decade that were linked to the controversial drink. (E. coli, which is killed when milk is heated up during the pasteurization process, is often the presumed culprit.)

Reports of S.W.A.T.-style raids on dairy farms and distributors like Schlangen thought to be peddling raw milk have sent the raw milk market underground, with proponents fearing criminal charges. It has resulted in the creation of an odd criminal industry, profiled by writer Dana Goodyear in the April 30 issue of The New Yorker. “Raw milk,” she wrote, “is the new pot—only harder to get.”

Here’s a roundup of a few other recent happenings in the raw milk debate:

Raw Milk Gaining Traction in the Granite State

A bill currently on the New Hampshire governor’s desk stands to raise the cap on the amount of raw milk backyard dairies can sell from five gallons a day to 20, according to New England Cable News. This would be good news for Kathie Nunley of Amherst, N.H., whose jersey cow Dixie produces up to seven gallons of milk a day. “So we had to offer the extra to our community,” Nunley told NECN. “What we didn’t know is everyone wanted it.”

“The health halo of a nostalgic, if apocryphal, place”

That’s how Peter Smith described the raw milk movement in a post last week for the Smithsonian’s Food and Think blog. He criticized Goodyear and The New Yorker for mentioning only one scientific study of the health benefit of raw milk, which he writes “remains speculative” while “its risks remain high.”

More Sick People in Oregon, Missouri

In Oregon, as many as 21 cases of foodborne illnesses have been linked to a farm outside of Wilsonville, according to OPB News. Included among the ill is a two-year-old who has been hospitalized for more than a month after drinking unpasteurized milk. In Missouri, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that six of 13 people who were sickened by E. coli last month drank raw milk from the same farm.

The Legal Situation

The sale of raw milk is still legal in 28 states, though restrictions on the amount and method of procurement varies from state to state. The FDA has said that “raw milk, no matter how carefully produced, may be unsafe,” and a federal law prohibits the interstate transport of raw milk. In late March, a federal district judge in Falls Church, VA, dismissed a lawsuit challenging that federal ban. Litigation in other states, including California, has had similarly disappointing outcomes for raw milk advocates.

While the U.S. is fairly strict about raw milk, though, Canada and Australia are even stricter, completely banning the sale of milk directly to the consumer. In contrast, the European Union has no regulations on raw milk sales or consumption, and goes as far as to declare it “safe for human consumption.”

To review the raw milk laws in your state, raw_milk_map.htm

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Making Chemical Giants Happy at Our Expense

Posted on May 9, 2012 by tom

Making Chemical Giants Happy at Our Expense

From Nation of Change

By Jim Hightower

May 9, 2012

Thanks to the blessings of nature and good farmers, you and I can enjoy such scrumptious delights as fresh corn-on-the-cob, popcorn and many other variations of this truly great grain. And now, thanks to Dow Chemical and federal regulators, we can look forward to “Agent Orange Corn.” The chemical giant is in line to gain approval for putting a genetically altered corn seed on the market that will produce corn plants that won’t die when doused with high levels of 2,4-D.

This potent pesticide was an ingredient in Dow’s notorious Agent Orange defoliant, which did such extensive and horrific damage to soldiers and civilians in the Vietnam War. However, the corporation and the feds claim that 2,4-D was not the deadliest ingredient of the killer defoliant and has not yet been proven to cause cancer in humans, so they’re pressing ahead to let this corporate-constructed seed be planted across America.

Dow now sells 2,4-D to help kill various weeds, but the herbicide is so strong that it also kills nature’s own version of corn plants. Thus, Dow’s genetic engineers went into the corporate lab and manufactured a new corn that’s immune to the weed-killer. This would let the chemical maker profit from selling the patented seed, plus enjoying a huge increase in sales of its 2,4-D herbicide. How happy for Dow! Not so happy, though, for consumers worried about the untested long-term health consequences of the altered corn and the carcinogenic possibilities of ingesting more 2,4- D. Also, when sprayed, this herbicide can vaporize and spread for miles, killing crops that are not immune, poisoning the surrounding environment, and endangering the health of farmers and townspeople throughout the area.

Dow is hardly alone in pursuing its happiness at the expense of others. Indeed, rather than finding ways to cooperate with the natural world, America’s agribusiness giants generally reach for the quick, high-tech fix in a futile effort to overpower nature.

Monsanto, for example, has banked a fortune by selling a corn seed that it genetically manipulated to produce corn plants that won’t die when sprayed with a toxic weed-killer called “Roundup.” Not coincidentally, Monsanto also happens to be the maker of Roundup, so it has profited from the seed and from the surge in Roundup sales that the seed generated.

Slick

But Mother Nature, damn her, has rebelled. So much of Monsanto’s poison was spread across America in the past decade that weeds naturally and rather rapidly developed a resistance to it. As a Dow Chemical agronomist put it, “The real need here is to diversify our weed management systems.” Exactly right! We need non-chemical, non-GMO, sustainable systems that work with nature

But, no, the Dow man didn’t mean that at all. He was calling for more brute force in the form of his corporation’s altered corn seed — the one that can withstand being doused with Dow’s super-potent 2,4-D weed killer. Use this, he promises, and this time nature will surely be defeated.

Wrong. Nature doesn’t quit. The weeds will keep evolving and will adapt to Dow’s high-tech fix, too. By pushing the same old thing relentlessly, says an independent crop scientist, agribusiness interests “ratchet up (America’s) dependence on the use of herbicides, which is very much a treadmill.” So much unhappiness for so many just to make one corporation happy by getting much richer at our expense.

It’s time to start listening to the weeds — and cooperating with Mother Nature. To advance this common sense approach, a national coalition is backing a California “Right to Know” initiative requiring GMO-altered foods to be labeled.

To help, go to Organic Consumers Association at www.OrganicConsumers.org, and get involved in the coalition’s Money Bomb Monsanto Campaign.
Copyright Creators.com

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California Seeks Middle Ground with Underground Raw Milk Producers

Posted on May 3, 2012 by tom

California Seeks Middle Ground with Underground Raw Milk Producers

Capitol Public Radio

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Selling raw milk in California is legal – if you have a license. But there’s a movement among cow owners who are producing unpasteurized milk without one. State food safety officials are trying to figure out how to deal with them.

(Sacramento, CA)

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Retail sales of raw milk are soaring at Organic Pastures, one of the two licensed raw milk companies in California, says company CEO Mark McAfee.

Another small raw milk producer in El Dorado County has a similar story.

“I have a waiting list and it keeps getting longer,” says Pattie Chelseth of Shingle Springs. “People are absolutely flocking to understand the health benefits of raw milk.”

Chelseth runs a herdshare. It’s a co-ownership agreement where neighbors pay a monthly fee for her to board the animal and supply them with milk.

At least fifteen families pick up their share of raw milk each week from Chelseth’s farm in El Dorado County. They pay what amounts to about $15 dollars a gallon and are known to drive a half an hour to get it.

But Chelseth and other raw milk operators have come under legal fire. Chelseth was served with a cease and desist order from the state for operating without a license. But she says she’s not selling milk.

“This is private ownership, it’s private property,” says Chelseth. “If you own the cow, you can drink her milk. There’s nothing illegal about that. So where is this different? We have 15 people who own the cow, and they can drink the milk.”

Sources say there are at least 100 herdsharers like Chelseth in California. It’s estimated that each herdshare operation makes unpasteurized milk available to ten, to as many as 350 people.

“We found out about each other, and we started organizing, and then we found out there’s a lot. And so we’re kind of the voice now for these people who are afraid to come out of the barn (laughs) with good reason.”

The word “herdshare” doesn’t exist in California Food and Agriculture code. Chelseth says modifying her tiny operation in order to get a license would be cost prohibitive. The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) convened a working group to figure out how to deal with the licensing of the smallest of dairies.

CDFA’s State Veterinarian Dr. Annette Whiteford says the state recognizes there’s a trend in local food production, and that includes small raw milk producers.

“A lot of people have an interest in trying to kind of go back to their roots and make food the old way,” she says. “Other people are trying to meet cultural niches.”

She says the “small herd working group” is talking about how to incorporate small-scale raw milk producers into safety and sanitation standards.  

“Every time you feed your child food, you want to count that it’s just as safe as it was last time you gave it to them. So food safety was the number one priority, but then could we re-look at our food safety regulations and see if we could remove some of the barriers – the cost prohibitive barriers – to providing that safe product,” says Whiteford.

0503PB graphic small

But Chelseth, who’s a member of the working group doesn’t understand why the government wants to regulate operations like hers. Her fellow cowsharers don’t get sick from raw milk, she says.

“Where does the government get off having that power to regulate the private? I understand there being the public. I understand the need for that now, because the food industry has made that so. But this is not industrialized food. It’s kind of stepping forward into the past, this local food movement.”

But raw milk has been linked to serious illness in California – and recently. Outbreaks have been associated with both an underground herdshare and products available at the store. UC Davis dairy safety expert Dr. Jim Cullor says even in the pioneer days, people understood the benefits of pasteurizing milk.

“They knew that they needed to heat the milk and make sure the bacteria counts were low… Even in China, in inner Mongolia, the tribes, the people that lived out on the planes, the mares milk and the cows milk that they do…they heat it.”

Cullor thinks even small producers should be adhering to the pasteurized milk standard to help reduce the health risks milk pathogens pose to people with vulnerable immune systems.

“I encourage dairy producers to grow and have their enterprises, and support their families and support their communities, but we have to be careful about our food products,” says Dr. Cullor.

Annette Whiteford of the CDFA says the state is committed to reaching consensus about food safety in the small milk working group. But it might take a while.

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Outrage! (Monsanto intimidation)

Posted on May 3, 2012 by tom

Outrage!
Organic Bytes
Organic Consumers Association

What is going on? In the past few months GMO labeling legislation has been introduced in Washington State, Minnesota, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Vermont. In each state, the same frustrating story repeats itself. Legislators are optimistic, the bills seem to move quickly at first, they receive a record breaking amount of public support, and then they stall in committee and never move again, despite unprecedented numbers of calls and emails from citizens to legislators. A representative in Minnesota told us they expected “fallout” for supporting the bill, even though it didn’t pass. In Washington state an unprecedented coalition of anti-GMO wheat farmers and organic consumers were stymied by agriculture committee legislators, who, it turns out, had received money from Monsanto. In Vermont, legislators and Governor backed off from a California-style labeling bill, despite polls showing 90% of Vermonters supported the bill, openly admitting that they were fearful of a lawsuit from Monsanto and the biotech industry. It’s clear that Monsanto and the biotech bullies will go to great lengths to keep their stranglehold on our food supply, and unfortunately most state legislators are either intimidated by or complicit with Monsanto.

It is also clear that we are at a major turning point in this fight. More people than ever care about what is happening to our food supply. More people than ever want to see GMOs labeled. The energy is building!

Here’s what OCA wants to do about it:

Our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign plans to join forces with the Occupy Monsanto protests across the country the week of September 17th, 2012 to create the largest Days of Action for GMO Labeling ever! We want to raise the clamor for labeling to a fever pitch and you can help!

Here’s what we need:

More activists and more awareness in each state!

There are now 692,413 in our Millions Against Monsanto campaign! Let’s get one million by September 17th! In the months leading up to the Days of Action, we need you to gather petition signatures (PDF) and pass out leaflets at your local farmer’s market or natural food store. Summer is the perfect time to raise awareness about food.

Petitions (PDF)

Leaflets, Posters and other Educational Materials

Please contact us if you want any of these materials in quantity!

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Today is the day Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have been dreading

Posted on May 2, 2012 by tom

May 2, 2012

Ronnie Cummins
Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund

Dear Friend,

Today is the day Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have been dreading, and the day that millions of us have been waiting for.

Today a grassroots corps of volunteer petition gatherers arrived at County Clerks’ offices in all 58 counties in California. They delivered almost a million petitions signed by registered voters along with this message:

Millions against Monsanto are taking back our democracy and restoring our fundamental right to know what’s in our food.

This is the first step in putting the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on the ballot in November. Now it’s time for the next step: ramping up the campaign so that millions of fired-up voters in California will turn out in record numbers on November 6 to pass this initiative.

To make this happen, a broad coalition of food, farm, health, public interest, and environmental groups all over the country, joined by leading organic food companies, are delivering this same message today: Let’s drop the money bomb on Monsanto.

Please help these groups raise $1 million dollars by May 26th for the California Right to Know GMO Labeling Campaign. You can donate online, by phone, or by mail.

After decades of allowing corporations like Monsanto to buy off our politicians and regulatory agencies, to intimidate everyone from small farmers and state legislators to the Governor of Vermont – to poison our food and our planet – it’s time to say “No more.”

It’s time to tell Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies that we demand the right to know whether our food has been genetically engineered. It’s time for the 99% of us to tell our elected officials that if they won’t protect us from CEOs and corporations – the 1% that are destroying our health, our food, and our planet – we will bypass them. We will organize ballot initiatives and write our own laws. And then vote them into law.

It’s time to drop the money bomb on Monsanto.

Monsanto, Big biotech and Food Inc., are desperate to defeat the California Right to Know Ballot Initiative. They will spend millions on a campaign based on lies and intimidation. They’ll try to convince voters that GMOs aren’t dangerous, and that labeling them will make food more expensive. They’re counting on us to cower in the face of their massive spending and TV ads, and their threat to sue any state that dares to stand up to them.

What they aren’t counting on is you – and millions like you across the country – who know what’s at stake in California. Millions who know that if this law passes in the state with the eighth largest economy in the world, it’s only a matter of time before we win the battle everywhere.

Monsanto isn’t counting on millions of people like you who know that GMOs in our food have been linked to a host of health issues, including kidney and liver damage, infertility, auto-immune disorders, allergies, accelerated aging and birth defects.

It doesn’t matter what political party you belong to, or which candidates you support. The right to know issue belongs to all of us. It’s about our food, our health, and our environment. We are all in this together. That’s why together, we are going to raise $1 million in the next few weeks to help pass this law, and shift the balance of power back to the grassroots, the 99%.

Please donate today – online, by phone, or drop a check in the mail. Every dollar that you contribute will go directly into the California Right to Know ballot initiative and other state GMO labeling campaigns, including a legal defense fund to defend states that pass GMO labeling laws from Monsanto lawsuits.

We can do this. It’s time. Let’s drop the money bomb on Monsanto and take back our food supply. Thank you!

For an Organic Future,


 Ronnie Cummins
Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund

P.S. All money raised for this campaign will go through the Organic Consumers Fund, a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic ConsumersAssociation, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action. Donations are not tax-deductible.

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Letter Shows Monsanto Planted GMOs Before USDA Approval

Posted on May 2, 2012 by tom

Letter Shows Monsanto Planted GMOs Before USDA Approval

By Anthony Gucciardi and Cassandra Anderson

Did Monsanto actually plant genetically modified alfalfa before it was deregulated by the USDA? There is some shocking evidence that, until recently, was withheld from the public showing that Monsanto’s genetically altered alfalfa may have been set free in 2003 — a full two years or more before it was deregulated in 2005. In a letter, obtained by NaturalSociety with permission to post for public viewing, it becomes clear that the USDA may have turned a blind eye to the entire situation, allowing widespread GMO contamination of GMO-free crops.

Amazingly, the letter actually proves that the USDA was fully aware of the situation. In order to fully understand the intricate details of this event, it is first important to understand a few key factors regarding alfalfa and its connection to the entire food supply.

Alfalfa is a perennial plant that grows for more than 2 years and may not need to be replanted each year like annuals. Because it is a perennial plant, it is exceptionally vulnerable to contamination. Interestingly, the modified alfalfa — created by Monsanto in partner with a group known as Forage Genetics — was the first perennial plant to be deregulated for open planting by the USDA. But did Monsanto unleash the plant before this occurred?

This is very serious because it is only a matter of time before alfalfa across America could be corrupted with Monsanto’s patented genetically modified trait. Organic meat and dairy could be tainted when animals are fed the modified alfalfa as well, threatening the very integrity of the organic food supply. What’s more, the contamination of natural alfalfa could be nearly impossible — if not entirely impossible — to remedy, so it could actually fracture the genetic stability of the entire crop on a global scale.
Shocking Letter Reveals Monsanto’s Contamination Dates Back 2 Years Before Deregulation

A letter from Cal/West Seeds shows that evidence of contamination was withheld and the USDA turned a blind eye to proof of contamination in 2005 which shows it was planted at least two years before it was initially deregulated in 2005. As you can see for yourself, the official letter states:

We first discovered the unintended presence of the Roundup Ready gene in our conventional alfalfa seeds in 2005. It was identified in one of our foundation seed production lots grown in California. We tested the foundation seed lot priot to shipping it to a producer who intended to plant it for organic seed production.

In another telling segment, the author writes:

We detected the presence of the … Roundup Ready gene in both our foundation seed and certified seed prior to deregulation.

In order to protect the safety of the individual, some further contents cannot be divulged. Remember in the past, those who have stood up against Monsanto have received anonymous death threats — in one case, the threats were directed towards a mother and her children.

This video documents the timeline of events that led to the deregulation of Monsanto & Forage Genetics’ GMO alfalfa that is contaminating natural alfalfa. As the video explains, the lawyers representing the farmers against Monsanto failed to hold an evidentiary hearing so the injunction (ban) against planting GMO alfalfa was removed and the case was sent back to the lower district court. The lawyers pursued no further action on this case.

Contamination levels are still very low, but will undoubtedly increase over time with unexpected results (like superweeds), so stopping the further planting of GM plants like alfalfa is of high concern. Furthermore, it would set a precedent for banning other GMO perennial plants as well — a monumental move in the legislative fight against GMOs. This letter, compounded with the other evidence presented in this article, is paramount in displaying just how serious of an issue genetic contamination is. What’s more, the USDA appears to have known the entire time. It’s time to spread the word.

This article was published at NationofChange at:

http://www.nationofchange.org/letter-shows-monsanto-planted-gmos-usda-approval-1335971971. All rights are reserved.

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Woman Receives Anonymous Threats after Opposing Monsanto

Posted on April 23, 2012 by tom

Woman Receives Anonymous Threats after Opposing Monsanto
Mike Barrett
Natural Society / News Report
Published: Monday 23 April 2012

After losing a 3-day old daughter to kidney failure, a woman named Sofia Gatica from Argentina made a decision to spearhead an anti-Monsanto movement with other mothers of sick children. Monsanto is a biotechnology, agrochemical company which has been polluting the environment and human health with herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and other substances for decades. Numerous cases have been brought against Monsanto for biological damage and even death — such is the recent case in which farmers say the biotech giant’s creations spawned ‘devastating birth defects‘.

Near where Gatica lives, there are soybean fields covering the land where farmers spray loads of chemicals on the crops. The primary weed killer used on the fields is the one and only Roundup, the most popular herbicide used by farmers which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Gatica didn’t initially connect the chemical exposure to her baby’s death until she noticed that many of her friends and neighbors were also experiencing health problems.

“I started seeing children with mouth covers, mothers with scarves wrapped around their heads to cover their baldness, due to chemotherapy…There are soybeans to the north, to the south, and to the east, and when they spray, they spray over the people because there’s no distance,” Gatica said to a Grist reporter.

In fact, researchers found that people in her area had three to four agricultural chemicals in their blood, including one chemical, endosulfan, which is banned in over 80 countries. The researchers also found that 33 percent of the residents were struck with cancer. In other previous German findings, Monsanto’s Roundup was present in all urine samples tested at an amount of 5 to 20-fold the established limit for drinking water, showing how prevalent these chemicals really are.

In retaliation to Monsanto and their highly used chemical creations, Gatica worked to create an international movement against Monsanto with other activists. A few years ago, after co-founding a group called Mothers of Ituzaingó, she and her group initiated the first epidemiological study of the area which found high rates of neurological and respiratory disease, birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer rates more than 40 times the national average. She then continued to find researchers to study the links between pesticides, herbicides, and health problems, while engaging in protests voicing concerns over the issues.

“We blockaded the spraying machines. We would get into the fields to block them. We carried out protests at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. We took sick people to the ministry,” she said.

Over the course of a few years, mandatory buffer zones between aerial spraying and neighborhoods has been put in place thanks to the activist movement. In addition, Argentina’s Supreme Court decided that agrochemicals could not be sprayed near living areas.

However, while Gatica and other activists successfully created change, the process wasn’t necessarily easy. In fact, there were even direct threats.

“Somebody came inside my house with a weapon. I was told not to ‘screw around with the soybeans.’ I would get phone calls where I’d be told that I would only have two children the next day,” she said. “I had the police investigate this, but I was told that the file was secret,” she added after being questioned as to whether she ever found out who made the personal attacks.

Interestingly enough, previous research found that Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup exhibits direct toxicity to human cells, effectively killing them off even at low doses. The toxicity and negative impact on young children is even greater, and is most detrimental to infants or unborn babies. Although Gatica started alone and was even directly threatened, she rose above these complications and effectively ignited change – she will not be the last.

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“Agent Orange” 2,4-D Corn is Coming to a field near you – It’s up to You to Stop It!

Posted on April 21, 2012 by tom

“Agent Orange” 2,4-D Corn is Coming to a field near you – It’s up to You to Stop It!

Food Democracy Now!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org

The first generation of biotech crops has failed. And failed badly.

In the last year alone, new studies have shown that Monsanto’s genetically-engineered Bt insecticide corn has not only created a new breed superbugs tolerant of the plant’s genetically engineered insecticide, but that those Bt toxins have also been found in the blood of 93 percent of woman and 80 percent of fetal blood samples in a Canadian study, despite Monsanto’s claims that this was not be possible.[1][2]

At the same time, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn and soybeans and their flagship herbicide have been linked to an increase in crop disease and livestock infertility.[3] If that weren’t enough, the excessive use of Roundup has led to the rampant rise of superweeds, which have grown tolerant to the herbicide and have infested millions of acres of farmland, threatening the livelihoods of America’s farmers.[4]

Now, Dow Chemical is petitioning the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the approval of a new genetically engineered “Agent Orange” corn that tolerates the extremely toxic chemical herbicide 2,4-D, a major component of the Vietnam War era defoliant Agent Orange.[5]

Numerous studies have linked exposure to 2,4-D to major health problems that include cancer (particularly non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma), lowered sperm counts, liver disease and Parkinson’s disease.[6] In addition, dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found the use of 2,4-D to contribute to hormone-disrupting activity linked to reproductive problems and thyroid dysfunction.[7]

Now they want to spray this chemical on our crops and fields!

Along with these major health impacts, the approval of Dow’s “Agent Orange” 2,4-D corn will likely lead to a massive explosion in the use of 2,4-D across the U.S. once the herbicide is approved for corn crops, a fact that has greatly alarmed scientists, environmentalists and farmers alike.

If the potential health problems and the escalating chemical arms race weren’t bad enough, 2,4-D is widely known among farmers for the problems with drift and volatilization, which means it’s difficult to control when applying and frequently leads to serious damage to neighboring farmer’s fields.

This concern over toxic chemical drift and damage to neighboring fields is so severe that it has led to the creation of a new farmer led organization, Save Our Crops Coalition, made up of more than 2,000 farmers and food companies who are petitioning the USDA to stop the approval of Dow’s 2,4-D corn.[8]

In a recent article by Reuters, John Bode, an attorney representing the group called 2,4-D one of “the most dangerous chemicals out there.” It should be noted that Bode was also a former assistant Secretary of Agriculture under President Ronald Reagan.

Considering the serious human health concerns, the threat to the environment and family farmers themselves, the USDA should move quickly to reject approval for Dow Chemical’s 2,4-D corn. Not only does it not serve the public interest, but it will lead to an ever increasing reliance on deadlier and more toxic chemicals to grow our food.

Sources:

1. “Monsanto Corn May Be Failing to Kill Bugs in 4 States, EPA Says”, Bloomberg Businessweek, December 6, 2011

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/577?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=14

2. “Study Found Toxin from GM Crops is Showing up in Human Blood”,

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/578?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=16

3. “Mystery Science” More Details on the Strange Organism That Could Destroy Monsanto”, CBS News, May 5, 2011

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/579?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=18

4. “Farmers Must Spend More on Herbicides as Effectiveness Fades” USA Today, April 16, 2012 http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/580?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=20

5. “Agent Orange”, Wikipedia http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/581?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=22

6. “Opposition grows to “Agent Orange” GM corn” The Organic and Non-GMO Report, February 1, 2012

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/582?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=24

7. “Smarter Living: Chemical Index 2,4-D”, National Resource Defense Council,
www.nrdc.org/living/chemicalindex/2-4-d.asp

8. “Farm group seeks U.S. halt on “dangerous” crop chemicals”, Reuters, April 18, 2012 http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/583?akid=531.10816.JEJstc&t=26

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Vermont Surrenders

Posted on April 19, 2012 by tom

Vermont Surrenders

Organic Consumers Association
Organic Bytes

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has less than two weeks to either stand with the 90% of his constituents who support a mandatory labeling bill for genetically engineered foods – or cave in to Monsanto’s threat to sue the state if legislators pass H.722.

The bill that once appeared destined to pass on the merits of scientific evidence, overwhelming public support, and support of the majority of Vermont’s progressive legislators, now appears doomed – unless Vermont voters succeed in changing the Governor’s mind.

If the Governor’s words this past week are any indication, he’s already surrendered to Monsanto. But Vermonters, not known for backing down from a fight, are challenging legislators to take on the biotech industry. They’re even offering to raise money for the state’s defense.

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Bio Democracy: Using Local Sovereignty to Protect Ourselves From Corporations and Corporate-Controlled State and Federal Governments

Posted on April 14, 2012 by tom

Bio Democracy: Using Local Sovereignty to Protect Ourselves From Corporations and Corporate-Controlled State and Federal Governments

Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

Organic Bytes

This is the subject of a workshop OCA Political Director Alexis Baden-Mayer is giving at the National Occupation of Washington, D.C. Social Forum tomorrow.

The workshop is inspired and informed by the excellent work the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has done to help localities defend their right to self-determination, participatory democracy, community-control over shared resources, and protection from corporations that want to raid resources or pollute.

In their Democracy School (available online and in your town), CELDF teaches that, since the late 19th century, corporate lawyers have used the 14th Amendment (meant to protect African American after the Civil War) to obtain constitutional rights for corporations and the Commerce Clause (for free trade among the several states) to strip localities and individuals of their sovereignty.

CELDF lays out a road-map for how to turn this around through the passage of local ordinances and home rule charters (local constitutions) that assert that:

– corporations are not people & they don’t have special rights
– the rights of the people, their local government and their environment are superior to corporate interests,
– corporations, and the people behind them, can be held accountable for the harms they cause to people and the environment, and
– corporations cannot use their money to lobby the local government or influence elections

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