Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQwIdiN8tyM

Obama Tells Farmer No Need to Worry About Government Over-Regulation of Agriculture

Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Purveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops — and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany them — are finally getting a taste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota’sStar Tribunehas reported that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.

Oluf and Debra Johnson’s 1,500-acreorganicfarm in Stearns County, Minn., has repeatedly been contaminated by nearby conventional and GMOfarmssince the couple started it in the 1990s. A localpesticidecooperative known as Paynesville Farmers Union (PFU), which is near the farm, has been cited at least four times for violating pesticidelaws, and inadvertently causing damage to the Johnson’s farm.

The first time it was realized thatpesticideshad drifted onto the Johnson’s farm in 1998, PFU apologized, but did not agree to pay for damages. As anyone with an understanding of organic practices knows, even a small bit ofcontaminationcan result in having to plow under that season’s crops, forgetprofits, and even lose the ability to groworganic cropsin the same field for at least a couple years.

The Johnson’s let the first incident slide. But after the second, third, and fourth times, they decided that enough was enough. Following the second pesticide drift in 2002, the Johnson’s filed a complaint with the Minnesota Agriculture Department, which eventually ruled that PFU had illegally sprayedchemicalson windy days, which led to contamination of the Johnson’s organiccrops.

PFU settled with the Johnson’s out of court, and the Johnson’s agreed to sell their tainted products as non-organics for a lower price, and pull the fields from production for three years in order to bring them back up to organic standards. But PFU’s inconsiderate spraying habits continued, with numerous additional incidents occurring in 2005, 2007, and 2008, according to theStar Tribune.

After enduring much hardship, the Johnson’s finally ended up suing PFU in 2009 for negligence and trespass, only to receive denial from the district court that received the case. But after appealing, the Johnson’s received favor from the Appeals Court, which ruled that particulate matter, including pesticides,herbicides, and even GM particulates, that contaminates nearby fields is, in fact, consideredillegaltrespass, and is subject to the same laws concerning other forms of trespass.

In a similar case, a California-based organic farm recently won a $1 millionlawsuitfiled against a conventional farm whose pesticides spread through fog from several miles away, and contaminated its fields. Jacobs Farm / Del Cobo’s entire season’sherbcrop had to be discarded as a result, and the court that presided over the case acknowledged and agreed that the polluters must be held responsible (http://organicfood.einnews.com/arti…).

Precedent has now been set fororganic farmersto sue biotechnology companies whose GMOs contaminate their crops

The stunning victories of both the Johnson’s and Jacob’s Farm / Del Cobo against their chemical-polluting neighbors is huge, in that it represents a new set legal precedent for holding conventional, factory farming operations responsible for the damage their systems cause to other farms. And with this new precedent set, many more organicfarmers, for instance, can now begin suingGMOfarmers for both chemical and genetic pollution that drifts onto their farms.

ManyNaturalNewsreaders will recall the numerous incidents involving lawsuits filed byMonsantoagainst non-GMO farms whose crops were inadvertently contaminated by GM material. In many of these cases, the defendants ended up becoming bankrupted by Monsanto, even though Monsanto’s patented materials were the trespassers at fault.

Be sure to check out the extensive and very informative report compiled by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) entitledMonsanto vs. U.S. Farmersfor a complete history of Monsanto’s war against traditional American agriculture:http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/…

But it appears that the tables are now turning. Instead of Monsanto winning against organic farmers, organic farmers can now achieve victory against Monsanto. In other words, farmers being infringed upon by the drifting of GM material into their fields now have a legal leg to stand on in the pursuit of justice against Monsanto and the other biotechnology giants whose “frankencrops” are responsible for causing widespread contamination of the Americanfoodsupply.

Genetic traits are highly transmissible, whether it be through pollen transfer or seed spread, and organic andnon-GMOfarmers have every right to seek damages for illegal trespassing when such transmission takes place. It is expected that many more organic farms will step up and begin seeking justice and compensation for damage caused by crop chemicals, GM materials, and other harmful invaders.

For too long, Monsanto has been getting away with suing farmers whose crops have become contaminated by Monsanto’s patented genetic traits and chemical materials, and winning. Thankfully, the justice system seems to now recognize the severe error in this, and is now beginning to rightfully hold polluters and trespassers responsible. Monsanto, your days are numbered.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.startribune.com/local/12…

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/033216_GMO_contamination_lawsuits.html#ixzz1avVo1iIi

(NaturalNews) The mainstream media reports almost nothing about the downside of GMO farming. Only the propaganda of creating more agricultural abundance cheaply is broadcasted. A short video documentary “Farmer to Farmer: The Truth about GM Crops” offers a glimpse into the undisclosed downside reality of GMO farming.

Documentary Essence

Michael Hart has been a commercial farmer in Cornwall, England for thirty years. He is not an organic farmer, but he is a proponent of agricultural diversity from family farms. He wants the EU to avoid theGMOseed/herbicide trap.

His recently produced short documentary focuses onAmerican farmers, who have bought into thebiotechindustry’s propaganda of higher yields with less overhead. Thefarmershe interviewed underscore the same theme:Monsantohas trapped them into a financial system of patented seeds andherbicidesthat have resulted in faltering crop yields with higher operating expenses.

Major Points Discussed in the Video

Monsanto sells its Roundupherbicidespecifically for itsRoundup ReadyGM seeds. It’s part of a rigidly enforced deal. The deal is sold with the promise that one post emergence pass (spraying after plants emerge) ofRoundupwill be sufficient for high crop yields of Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready GMOseeds.

At first this appeared to be the case. But within a short time, Roundup resistantweedsbegan sprouting. Different combinations of tank mixed herbicides had to be contrived and purchased in addition to Monsanto’s contractually required Roundup herbicide. Monsanto even sold tank mixed herbicides as well.

Not only did one pass not work, but farmers also attested to different combinations of herbicides with several passes, which included pre-emergence and post emergence spraying to manage theircrops. The new weeds had become a plague. And GMO crop production wound up demanding even morepesticideapplications thannon-GMOcommercial farming.

Because the biotechindustrynow funds most agricultural university research, the farmers are concerned about the lack of attention toward developing betterpesticidesthat would minimize spraying. When the composite chemical tank pesticides don’t do the job, Monsanto advises farmers to pull weeds by hand. Many crop fields are well over a thousand acres!

GMO farmers are contractually barred from saving seeds for future crop planting. This violates a centuries old custom. They have to buy new GMO seeds from Monsanto for every new crop planting. A non-GMOfarmercan save seeds to raise new crops. Even if GMO seeds are cheaper, in the long run the non-GMO farmer saves money since he’s able to use seeds saved from prior plantings many times over.

Even so, prices for non-GMO seeds have increased substantially as public (not patented) seeds are being crowded out of the market with Monsanto’sgovernment granted ability to patent seeds that are not genetically modified. Farmers hire professional seed cleaners to clean and sort their saved seeds. Monsanto harasses seed cleaners to ensure they are not mixing Monsanto’s patented seeds with farmers’ saved seeds.

American farmers realize the co-existence of non-GMO fields with GMO fields is impossible. They’ve had to learn the hard way that cross pollination and seeds carried by wind and migrating birds contaminate their non-GMO fields. And Monsanto uses patent law to prosecute farmers, who have been unwittingly contaminated by nearby GM fields belonging to other farmers. This type of intimidation forces non-GMO farmers out of business.

Conclusion

Michael Hart has vowed to promote GMOresistanceto EU farmers. Beyond Hart’s mission, health freedom activists, who are concerned about GMO threat to human health, should consider including disgruntled GMO and non-GMO commercial farmers in an international coalition of GMO resistance.

You can view the Farmer to Farmer video here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEX6…

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/033264_farmers_GMOs.html#ixzz1avQuvhzT

Farmer to Farmer: The Truth About GM Crops (Video)

Accra, April 12, GNA – Ms. Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, on Monday advised African farmers to adopt Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) to boost food production.

GMO is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.

Ms Ayittey said that the negative effects of climate change and land related issues had brought about disparity in the agriculture sector, therefore; farmers needed to change from their way of farming to a more advanced system.

She gave the advice when addressing participants at a four-day workshop on “Taxonomy Needs Assessment of Ghana”, in Accra on Monday.

The workshop sought to help review the draft policy on taxonomy, which identifies, describes and communicates about many organisms which remain unknown and are destroyed before they become known.

Taxonomy is a system of arranging animals and plants into natural, related groups based on some factor common to each, as structure, embryology, or biochemistry.

A review of the draft policy would create the necessary environment for a free flow of information about the nation’s biodiversity heritage.

The workshop jointly sponsored by government and United Kingdom Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, was attended by 50 participants from research institutions and security agencies in Ghana as well as taxonomy experts from Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

Ms. Ayittey noted that Ghana involved stakeholders in consultations and finally had a draft legislative instrument prepared which was passed by Parliament to make it legal for individuals and institutions with proper expertise and capabilities to practice science biotechnology, especially in gene transfer technologies.

She said the nation had put in place adequate measures to ensure that satisfactory preparations were made to implement decisions taken on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in Biotechnology.

“This involves Ghana’s accession to the protocol and preparation of guidelines on safety in biotechnology,” she said.

Ms Ayittey said government was ready to consult scientists and experts in biological and applied sciences to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the nation’s biodiversity.

She said that taxonomy formed part of the nation’s sustainable development goal being undertaken with passion, because it was a fundamental infrastructure to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of poverty alleviation, combating disease and environmental sustainability.

Ms Ayittey said that the nation needed to develop effective measures to ensure the proper conservation, ownership, sustainable use and preservation of its biological resources.

She pledged government’s commitment to incorporate issues relating to taxonomy and bio-diversity into the vision 2030 National Development agenda as well as the Sustainable Development Programme.

Professor Alfred Oteng Yeboah, Lecturer, Faculty of Science, University of Ghana, said before the appropriate taxonomic resources could be made available, there was the need to identify problems and gaps to solve them.

He explained that taxonomy would contribute to wealth creation and poverty reduction because empowering all stakeholders, who used biological resources, would serve as basis for decision-making in conservation and sustainable use of biological and genetic resources.

(Reuters) – An Italian court has imposed a 25,000 euro ($33,670) fine on a farmer for illegally growing genetically modified maize and ordered him to destroy the crop, but the farmer said on Tuesday he would appeal the decision.

Italy has banned cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops pending approval of rules on co-existence of GM and traditional crops. Public opinion in the country is strongly opposed to GM organisms, which are seen as less healthy.

A judge in the town of Pordenone issued the ruling after a scientific confirmation that Monsanto’s MON 810 maize had been cultivated on a plot of land in the north-eastern region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and had contaminated some nearby fields, although within accepted levels in the European Union.

The decision, announced both by supporters of GM crops and by fierce opponents at Italy’s Greenpeace, comes as a Europe-wide debate on GM cultivation heats up.

Many of the European Union’s largest governments reiterated on Monday their opposition to proposals to let EU states decide for themselves whether to grow or ban GM Crops.

Giorgio Fidenato, chairman of pro-GMO association Agricoltori Federati who planted the GM maize to speed up approval of GM crop cultivation in Italy, said he would fight the decision and prove he had done nothing wrong.

“I have planted maize on my property and, therefore, my actions were fully legitimate and legal,” Fidenato said in an audio interview available on the web site of pro-GM movement Movimento Liberatorio (www.movimentoliberatorio.it)

“The true legal battle starts now,” Fidenato said, adding that his lawyers have 15 days to appeal the ruling.

But Greenpeace activists said cultivation of GM maize in the Pordenone province had breached a law, which could carry a punishment of up to three years in jail or a fine of up to 51,700 euros.

“Finally, legality is brought back to Friuli,” said Greenpeace anti-GMO activist Federica Ferrario.

Italy’s regional agriculture chiefs, who were expected to meet on Thursday to give their opinions on a draft of co-existence rules, have postponed the meeting, and the new date is yet to be announced.

($1=.7426 Euro)

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova and Massimiliano Di Giorgio, editing by Jane Baird)

Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa

South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds. The plants look lush and healthy from the outside. Monsanto has offered compensation.

Monsanto blames the failure of the three varieties of corn planted on these farms, in three South African provinces,on alleged ‘underfertilisation processes in the laboratory”. Some 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the three varieties of Monsanto corn this year, have reported extensive seedless corn problems.

Urgent investigation demanded

However environmental activitist Marian Mayet, director of the Africa-centre for biosecurity in Johannesburg, demands an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods, blaming the crop failure on Monsanto’s genetically-manipulated technology.

Willem Pelser, journalist of the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, writes from Nelspruit that Monsanto has immediately offered the farmers compensation in three provinces – North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers’ cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that ‘less than 25%’ of three different corn varieties were ‘insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory’.

80% crop failure

However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem.According to her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures. The centre is strongly opposed to GM-food and biologically-manipulated technology in general.

“Monsanto says they just made a mistake in the laboratory, however we say that biotechnology is a failure.You cannot make a ‘mistake’ with three different varieties of corn.’

Demands urgent government investigation:

“We have been warning against GM-technology for years, we have been warning Monsanto that there will be problems,’ said Mayet. She calls for an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods in South Africa.

“We have been warning against GM-technology for years, we have been warning Monsanto that there will be problems,’ said Mayet. She calls for an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GM-foods in South Africa.

Of the 1,000 South African farmers who planted Monsanto’s GM-maize this year, 280 suffered extensive crop failure, writes Rapport.

Monsanto’s local spokeswoman Magda du Toit said the ‘company is engaged in establishing the exact extent of the damage on the farms’. She did not want to speculate on the extent of the financial losses suffered right now.
Managing director of Monsanto in Africa, Kobus Lindeque, said however that ‘less than 25% of the Monsanto-seeded farms are involved in the loss’. He says there will be ‘a review of the seed-production methods of the three varieties involved in the failure, and we will made the necessary adjustments.’

He denied that the problem was caused in any way by ‘bio-technology’. Instead, there had been ‘insufficient fertilisation during the seed-production process’.
And Grain-SA’s Nico Hawkins says they ‘are still support GM-technology; ‘We will support any technology which will improve production.’ see
He also they were ‘satisfied with Monsanto’s handling of the case,’ and said Grain-SA was ‘closely involved in the claims-adjustment methodology’ between the farmers and Monsanto.

Farmers told Rapport that Monsanto was ‘bending over backwards to try and accommodate them in solving the problem.

“It’s a very good gesture to immediately offer to compensate the farmers for losses they suffered,’ said Kobus van Coller, one of the Free State farmers who discovered that his maize cobs were practically seedless this week.

“One can’t see from the outside whether a plant is unseeded. One must open up the cob leaves to establish the problem,’ he said. The seedless cobs show no sign of disease or any kind of fungus. They just have very few seeds, often none at all.

The South African supermarket-chain Woolworths already banned GM-foods from its shelves in 2000. However South African farmers have been producing GM-corn for years: they were among the first countries other than the United States to start using the Monsanto products.

The South African government does not require any labelling of GM-foods. Corn is the main staple food for South Africa’s 48-million people.

The three maize varieties which failed to produce seeds were designed with a built-in resistance to weed-killers, and manipulated to increase yields per hectare, Rapport writes.

Vandana Shiva discusses 100,000+ Indian suicides after Monsanto 80% cotton crop failures

Delivering genetically engineered crops to poor farmers

Recommendations for improved biosafety regulations in developing countries

Small-scale, resource-poor farmers in developing countries face daily stresses, including poor soils, drought, and lack of inputs. Ongoing trends such as climate change and population growth will likely exacerbate binding stresses. A new generation of genetically engineered (GE) crop research aims to alleviate these pressures through the improvement of subsistence crops—such as cassava, sorghum, and millet—that incorporate traits such as tolerance to drought, water, and aluminum in soils as well as plants with more efficient nitrogen and phosphorus use. However, many developing countries lack the necessary biosafety systems for a timely and cost-effective adoption. This brief focuses on the regulatory reforms necessary for farmers and consumers in developing countries to benefit from GE crops.

http://www.ifpri.org/publication/delivering-genetically-engineered-crops-poor-farmers

ST. LOUIS—Monsanto Company will introduce new Genuity™ Roundup Ready 2 Yield® soybeans and Genuity™ SmartStax™ corn next year, which are expected to create approximately one-third of the company’s gross profit growth to 2012, said Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant during the Credit Suisse 22nd Annual Chemical and Ag Science Conference.

“As we upgrade the technology platform on each acre of corn, soybeans and cotton, we create more yield—and more profit—for our farmer customers,” Grant said. “As a result of delivering benefits on the farm and to our many seed company licensees, we expect our U.S. seed business alone to generate more gross profit in 2012 than our entire seed portfolio did around the world in 2009.”

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2009/09/monsanto-to-introduce-new-soybeans-and-corn.aspx?tw=20090919145050&tw=20090920012425

In 2007, Carol Goland drove home from a meeting of the Dairy Labeling Advisory Committee in Reynoldsburg feeling optimistic. There had been heated debate over a seemingly simple issue: the fairest and most informative way to label dairy products made from cows that have not been injected with a controversial growth hormone intended to increase milk production.

The farmers using the hormone — commonly known as rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), but also rBST (recombinant bovine somatotrophin) — were worried about losing business to competitors labeling their products as “rBGH-free.” Goland, executive director of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, could empathize. Still, she’d argued — successfully, it would turn out — that Ohio consumers have the right to know how their food is produced.

But the matter did not stay settled. In February 2008, Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) head Robert Boggs issued a ruling that tilted the labeling issue in favor of farmers using rBGH.

Since 1994, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended that labels touting “rBGH-free” also state that the FDA has determined that “no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-supplemented and non-rBST supplemented cows.” But the FDA remained silent on details like size and placement of the disclaimer.

this article is VERY long… read more:
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/got-artificial-hormoned-milk/Content?oid=1638383