Posts Tagged ‘GMO’


Posted on February 3, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

Urgent: USDA to rule on mutant alfalfa

Dear FRESH supporters,

Genetic food giant Monsanto is at it again. Its next target: a new product that could eliminate all organic alfalfa, a key food for raising organic-fed cows and pigs without any genetic engineering. Oceanflynn on Flickr

The USDA is well on its way to approving Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa. In its own report, the USDA says that not enough consumers care enough about organic foods for the USDA to block Monsanto’s modified alfalfa seeds. [1]  This is absurd since one of the main reasons people buy organic food is to avoid genetically engineered crops.

The USDA is only accepting public comments for the next two weeks. We need you to write to the USDA right now and tell them they must not approve Monsanto’s mutant alfalfa. We’ll deliver your comments before the deadline. [2]

Click here: http://action.freshthemovie.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1753

Alfafa is one of the major food sources for certified organic animals, not only because of its quality as forage, but because Monsanto’s patented genes are already found in 95% of soybeans and 80% of corn. If the USDA lets Monsanto sell its new alfalfa, it will inevitably overtake organic alfalfa crops through the natural pollination process. [3] As a result organic farmers may be feeding their cows genetically modified food.

Just like its corn and soy, Monsanto’s alfalfa is designed to tolerate its leading herbicide: Roundup. We can’t allow Monsanto’s greed to take-over one more crop. The consequences to our choice as consumer, to biological diversity, to the survival of our small and organic farmers depends are too dire.

Monsanto’s domination of our food must stop. For the USDA to shrug it off like nobody cares is to add insult to injury. We only have two weeks to submit our comments.The fight for FRESH food will continue, and with your help we’ll make it clear that people care about the food they eat.

Let’s show the USDA and Monsanto that people want food free from Monsanto’s modifications. Write your comments to the USDA now and say no to genetically modified alfalfa.

The fight for FRESH food will continue, and with your help we’ll make it clear that people care about the food they eat.

Thanks for all you do.

ana Sofia joanes

FRESH the Movie

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SOURCES:

1. United States Department of Agriculture. Glyphosate-Tolerant Alfalfa Events J101 and J163: Request for Nonregulated Status. Draft Environmental Impact Statement-November 2009. P.T-2.
2. Docket: APHIS-2007-0044: USDA Seeks Public Comment on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa
3. United States Department of Agriculture. Glyphosate-Tolerant Alfalfa Events J101 and J163: Request for Nonregulated Status. Draft Environmental Impact Statement-November 2009. P.95.

Reviews Supplemental documents here: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/alfalfa_documents.shtml
10 Things you should know about GE Alfalfa
Photo courtesy of OceanFlynn on Flickr

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Posted on January 13, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

Who’s fighting FRESH?

cornfields

Photo by: Peter Blanchard via Flickr

When it comes to the Big Bad Wolf of our food system, look no further than Monsanto.

Monsanto squeezes out farmers, seed growers, and practically everyone else in the business of growing food. Monsanto has its patented genes inserted into 95% of soybeans and 80% of all the corn grown in the United States. Their monopoly is so insidious that the Department of Justice is looking into whether Monsanto’s business practices are illegal.
Vu Manh Thang – I Am Superman

And now, Forbes Magazine named Monsanto the #1 company of the year for 2009.

Whatever the selection criteria at Forbes, I don’t support them or the values they embody.

In order to regain control of our agriculture, we MUST raise awareness and inspire MORE people to vote with their dollars. This is our mission at FRESH and we need your support. 2010 can be a huge year for the future of food, but FRESH needs your help to do it.

Can you please donate $5, $10, $25, or more to help us spread the word about fresh food?

Click here to donate: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5958/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1689

What Monsanto fears is the public knowing there’s a new way forward for our food, free from genetic engineering and harmful pesticides. That’s why, when Michelle Obama created an organic garden at the White House, Monsanto had the nerve to protest the garden, urging Michelle Obama to use pesticides on her food!

Monsanto is the prime example of everything that’s wrong with our food. They’re a huge corporation that plows down everything in its path in pursuit of cheaper food for bigger profits. And now that Forbes named Monsanto company of the year, it’s clear that fresh, organic food advocates are the David to Monstanto’s Goliath.

Monsanto would like nothing more than to see the sustainable food movement fail. But with your help,we’re building a grassroots movement to fight back and free our food from Monsanto’s grasp.

We’ve got a mountain to climb in 2010, and we’re convinced we can do it with your help. Please donate today to help us spread FRESH across America. Help us raise our voice and raise the voices of all of the farmers and food producers who we fight for.

Click here to donate $5, $10, $25 or more to FRESH the help us fight back against Monsanto.

Thanks so much for your help in making 2009 a great year for FRESH, and for your support in making 2010 even better.

Take care,

ana Sofia joanes
FRESH the Movie

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Posted on January 5, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

Seeds of Life: David Vs. Goliath

This post and accompanying video, the first in a new series called Seeds of Life, was originally published by our friends at Cooking Up a Story.

In an ongoing David versus Goliath legal battle, Frank Morton, an organic seed breeder in Philomath, Oregon, along with the plaintiffs listed in this lawsuit, have successfully sued the USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), for failure to require an environmental impact statement (EIS) prior to deregulation of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet plant. In the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Jeffrey S. White ruled on September 21, 2009 in favor of the plaintiffs— Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club, and High Mowing Organic Seeds— requiring that APHIS prepare an environmental impact statement, and setting in place the remedy phase of the trial, scheduled to begin today (December 4) to decide the fate of next year’s transgenic sugar beet crop.

This interview took place this summer prior to Judge White’s September ruling in favor of Frank Morton, and the other plaintiffs.

This ruling marks a resounding renunciation of the USDA/APHIS 2005 decision to deregulate and thus allow the unrestricted commercial development of “Event H7-1”, a Glyphosate tolerant sugar beet engineered by Monsanto and the German company KWS. Deregulation opened the door for transgenic sugar beet production in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, one of the most fertile agricultural regions in the world. The judge ordered that an environmental impact statement be conducted because USDA/APHIS failed to adequately consider the impact on the environment from stated cross contamination concerns, and the socio-economic impacts on consumers (eaters), farmers, and other market participants over the question of the continued availability of non-transgenic sugar beet crops.

In 2006, most of the sugar beet production was from conventional seeds but the Roundup Ready transgenic variety increased sharply in 2008 to about 60% of production, and rose again this year to estimates as high as 95% of the total U.S. market. The United States is among the largest producers of sugar, more than half comes from the production of sugar beets. Most of the U.S. sugar beet seed is produced in the Willamette Valley, where between 3000-5000 acres of sugar beet seeds are grown each year. The sugar beet plants grown from these seeds occupy areas of the western and mid-west regions of the country; the largest concentrations of (harvested) acres are in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan.

From Frank Morton’s perspective, his livelihood depends upon the ability to produce organic seeds that are not contaminated with transgenic genes spread from neighboring GMO related species of plants. In the Willamette Valley, an elaborate, but voluntary system exists to coordinate the growing of a diversity of crops to prevent the accidental cross-pollination and contamination that can occur naturally between related species. In the case of sugar beets, Morton’s Swiss Chard organic seed is commercially threatened by neighboring GMO sugar beet plants; the tiniest of contamination if it were to occur, would prevent him from selling his Swiss Chard organic seeds to his customers here and abroad. In addition, the introduction of any GMO crops into the ecologically unique Willamette Valley without a thorough environmental impact study sets a dangerous new precedent for more unregulated transgenic crops to follow.

For more, click through to Cooking Up a Story.

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Posted on November 17, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

You Are What You Eat!

LessCancer

Bill Couzens HeadshotBy: Bill Couzens
Bill Couzens is the Founder of Less Cancer

In the work to raise awareness for unnecessary and preventable exposures that may contribute to health effects including cancer, food should be considered.  Consumers must move away from the practice of pulling foods off the shelf with little knowledge of what they and their families eating.

Scientists have documented many examples of environmental exposures that are known to increase cancer risk include: smoking, UV light, asbestos, some pesticides, hormones, metals, vinyl chloride, gasoline, and small particulates from automobile and coal-fired power plants, to name a few.

What about contaminants in food?

Dr Maryann Donovan from the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cancer Institute (CEO-UPCI) says that  “consumers do need to become more selective when shopping for all products but especially food.  Scientists at the CEO-UPCI have measured contaminants in canned food at levels that can cause biological effects in laboratory studies. There are a number of published studies showing that some ingredients in products that we use in our homes, schools and communities are toxic and some have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory studies. Examples of possible food contaminants can include pesticide residues or bisphenol A. (BPA), a component of the resin that lines some cans and can leach into food”.

BPA, for instance, can be found in many of the canned foods sold in the United States. The Environmental Working Group tested 97 canned foods and found detectable levels of BPA in more than half of them.  The highest concentrations were in canned meats, pasta and soups.  Although there is no evidence that the levels of BPA in canned food cause health effects in humans, BPA is one of many chemicals in the environment that acts like the hormone estrogen.  Because low levels of hormones can have profound effects, exposure to hormone-like chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, is especially concerning.  Pregnant women and children may want to limit their consumption of canned foods to avoid this source of BPA exposure.

It is important to protect children.  By making better food choices we can reduce their exposure to a host of unhealthy ingredients and contaminants. It is important to remember that children are not small adults, rather, they are a developing version of an adult. Simply put, children are under construction. They are unfinished and their developing systems are quite fragile.   We know, for instance, that in children the brain continues to develop into their twenties, and this makes their brains potentially more vulnerable to toxicants. They also breathe much more rapidly, so they take in more toxins through their lungs.  For children, depending on the exposure, some of the first body systems to show negative health effects can be their neurological and respiratory systems.

Food choice presents an opportunity to make change and begin the process of providing healthy choices for your family, but especially for young children. One easy first step is to seek out your local farmers market so that you can buy fresh food that is minimally processed. For myself and my family I always buy local first and, when available, I buy certified organic. I do this because I want to reduce the unnecessary and preventable exposures to unhealthy ingredients like sugars, fats, preservatives; contaminants in canned food;  genetically modified (GM) foods; and foods containing antibiotic and pesticide residues. While farmers markets can be a safe alternative for tracking down healthier foods, shopping there can also be a fun family adventure!

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