The Consumer Council has called for a mandatory labeling system on all pre- packaged and genetically modified food sold in Hong Kong after revealing that half the soy drinks on the market contain GM ingredients.
It detected GM ingredients in half the 50 samples tested, though some had very limited amounts that were hardly quantifiable.
Seven of the soy drinks tested with GM components are labelled “Organic” on the packaging.
A further four, three of which are manufactured in Taiwan and the other in Hong Kong, contained 0.2 to 1.1 percent of GM components.
Two of these had labels claiming “non-GMO,” meaning no genetically modified organisms in the drinks.
Ambrose Ho Pui-him, the council’s publicity and community relations committee vice chairman, suggests food manufacturers avoid using “non-GMO” labels since the food may be accidentally contaminated by GM components during the production process.
At present, there is only a voluntary labeling guideline issued by the Centre for Food Safety, but no specific law governing sales and mandatory labeling.
“It has yet to be proved that GM food is harmful to human health when compared to traditional food, and the long-term effect towards human health is still unknown,” Ho said. KELLY IP
Our goal at Whole Foods Market is to provide informed consumer choice with regard to genetically engineered ingredients (also known as GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms). Clearly labeled products enable shoppers who want to avoid foods made with GMOs to do so. Accordingly we offer a growing array of choices in our stores by sourcing our 365 Everyday Value® food products to avoid GMOs, by supporting organic agriculture (which prohibits the use of GMOs), and by encouraging other food producers to offer non-GMO options.
When developing our national store brand food products under the 365 Everyday Value® label, we work with our manufacturers to source non-GMO ingredients. In July 2009, we began working with the Non-GMO Project to verify and label our store brand food products using the nation’s first authoritative standard for Non-GMO products. All of our 365 Everyday Value® food products are enrolled in the Project, and you can find a list of verified products (both our store brands and other brands) on your local Whole Foods Market’s store web page.
The Project is a collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, farmers, seed breeders and consumers who have developed North America’s first independent third-party Non-GMO Product Verification Program. This program ensures that food production follows rigorous best practices for GMO avoidance, and the seal allows consumers to make informed food buying choices.
The Product Verification Program uses a process that combines on-site facility audits, document-based review and product testing to verify compliance with the standard at every level of the supply chain, from manufacturing facilities to ingredient suppliers. For a product to be verified and bear the seal, it must undergo a process through which any ingredient at high risk for GMO contamination—soy or corn, for example—has been proven to meet the standard through avoidance practices and testing.
GMOS & CERTIFIED ORGANIC PRODUCTS
By law, organic products must be created only with non-GMO ingredients. Buying organic products throughout our stores is a reliable way for customers to choose non-GMO foods. Accordingly, we encourage manufacturers and producers to label organic products as not grown from genetically engineered seed.
We also encourage other manufacturers and producers to create products without GMO ingredients or processes and to have them verified and labeled as such.
Product labeling is an area where loopholes and CSR seem to converge. It is precisely these loopholes that make it easy for companies to engage in a degree of greenwash but there is a thin line between ‘greenwash’ and ‘misleading the consumer.’ A recent lawsuit against ConAgra proves this point. The American food giant that owns several brands like Healthy Choice, Wesson, Slim Jim, & Banquet has been under attack for alleged false labeling.
The Food Safety News reports that its Wesson brand of cooking oil has been slapped with various lawsuits for claiming to be “all natural.” This deceptive marketing suit was brought against ConAgra in June by Millberg LLP. It could actually make food manufacturers think twice about bandying about the word ‘natural.’ Four Wesson varieties are implicated in the case: Canola Oil, Vegetable Oil, Corn Oil, and Best Blend, all of which have the ”100% natural” claim on their labels. However, the products include a number of genetically modified organisms (GMO).
The problem of course does not reside only with Wesson. There are thousands of processed food items that line grocery shelves that have the ‘natural’ label but are known to contain GMOs. 85% of US corn and 91% of soybean is genetically modified – both of these are common ingredients in processed food either by themselves or in the form of derivatives like soya lecithin, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch etc. 90% of Americans want full disclosure on their food products which may mean that every major food company needs to overhaul its labeling policies.
This is a very significant breakthrough for anti-GMO campaigners because it shows how much consumer choice actually affects companies. This is also a case for those companies and governments pushing forintroduction of GMO in their countries. India is currently in the midst of signing off on a bill that will enable the free production of GMO fruit and vegetables. This would be a potentially calamitous move due to the lack of labeling laws in India as well as the fact that the country by and large still follows a bulk-bin system of buying produce.
Con Agra might be able to wriggle its way out of the suit. Its recent disclosure report revealed that it spent $100,000 in the second quarter on lobbying government officials on agriculture programs, ethanol regulations, etc. According to the report it filed, the company lobbied the FDA, the Department of Agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget, apart from Congress. I wonder how much of this went towards GMO lobbying.
Food companies can no longer hide behind ambiguous labels like ‘natural’ because food essentially is natural! The label itself is an oxymoron. With the advent of the suit on Con Agra, it is necessary for other companies to question their methods of labeling and/or food sourcing so that they are not open to liabilities. Currently under US laws, GMOs are not required to be labelled but labeling a product ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ when it does contain GMO is misleading to the consumer. Surely that is illegal?
“ If they have to put the word ‘natural’ on a box to convince you, it probably isn’t “
From the Rawesome Foods raid in Venice, California, this video is from the day of the raid and reveals how the government terrorists poured all the raw milk down the drain! Video courtesy of RealFoodRights.com
Massive public protest announced against government-sponsored terrorism of Rawesome Foods in California
(NaturalNews) As promised, a massive public protest is now being announced to give the members of the public an opportunity to voice their outrage against today’s arrest of three raw foods advocates who are all being charged with conspiracy.
The protest will be held at the LA County Courthouse located at:
210 West Temple, Division 30
Los Angeles
Arrive there at 7:45 am to join the protest, which needs to be in full swing early, because the court hearing for James is scheduled at 8:30.
Please keep your protests non-violent in nature and bring your signs, shirts and more. LA newspapers and media have already indicated they will be on scene. NaturalNews video journalists will also be on the scene filming whatever goes down. Videos will be posted on www.NaturalNews.TV
Bring your own cameras, too, and record your own photos and videos. Please post on NaturalNews.TV and we will likely link to your video in upcoming coverage of this event.
We apologize for the very short notice of this public protest, but we are publishing details about this story as quickly as we can. The story is breaking big and has already reached millions of listeners on the Alex Jones Show (www.InfoWars.com) and millions of readers through the Drudge Report (www.DrudgeReport.com), which has linked to NaturalNews as the breaking news source for this story.
Once the mainstream media starts covering this story, they will twist it around and LIE about it as they always do. NPR already did a hatchet job on this group following a previous raid. Only independent media (like NaturalNews) can be trusted to bring you the honest story on this without some corporate or government agenda.
There are already misinformed accusations that Rawesome Foods was not licensed as a retail business. But that’s incorrect information: Rawesome Foods is a private buying club and not a retail business that’s open to the general public. People can’t just walk in off the street and shop there like a regular grocery store. Thus, Rawesome does not have to be licensed like a regular grocery store. They are a private buyer’s club.
What went down in Venice, California today was clearly an act of government-sponsored terrorism against innocent citizens who are only “guilty” of selling healthful foods that are in huge demand by happy, healthy members (customers). That the selling of healthful raw milk cannot even be tolerated by the thuggish, corrupt government criminals who run the state of California (and the federal government) today is a powerful statement of just how much freedom we’ve already lost… and how hard we’re all going to have to fight back against tyranny to restore our basic food freedoms.
Watch NaturalNews for more developments on this story, and thank you for spreading the word about this latest assault on food freedom in America.
It has been reported this morning (August 3rd, 2011), that raw milk farm “Rawesome” in Venice, California has been raided once again by members of the SWAT team. With guns drawn, two of the owners arrested, and over $10,000 worth of raw milk dumped out, the freedoms of Americans are diminishing. There is, however, something we can do about it.
Rawesome Raid – Based on Public Health?
The excuse given for these absurd raids (that honestly casts embarrassment over the police force) is that raw milk is a health threat that causes listeria, e. coli disease and death. This certainly can be true for raw milk — but only if you are drinking raw milk from animals that are being raised in inhumane and poor conditions.
The actual excuse for the arrests and the raids have not yet been officially stated. Stay tuned for that news.
Clean, fresh raw milk from grass fed, free ranging animals, however, does not need to be pasteurized. Milk you purchase from a traditional grocery store does require pasteurization, as the farmers who raise these cows raise them in poor, dirty and sanitation conditions. Pasteurization is the answer for man’s dirty mistakes! Nature does not need to be cleaned, and man does not know more than nature.
Raw Milk Proven Safer than Other Commonly Sold Foods
Recent data from researcher Dr. Ted Beals, M.D., shows that between 1999 through 2010 illnesses resulting in raw milk consumption totaled to around462, which is about 42 illnesses per year.Out of the 47.8 million food borne illnesses each year from foods such as raw meat (which is readily available at every grocery store), peanut butter and spinach, it is very curious as to why raw milk is targeted so violently.
Up to 2011, it is estimated that close to 10 million individuals drink raw milk as its popularity rises. More and more individuals are starting to realize and wake up to the fact that are rights as citizens, when it comes to what we consume or inject in our bodies, are slowly being taken away.
We are supposed to be free. We are supposed to be able to make informed decisions on our health. With the majority of the population overweight, diabetic and prediabetic, shouldn’t we focus more attention on the foods that are actually threatening the health of the American population? Shouldn’t we be performing raids on sugary cereals that surpress immune function and accelerate cancer growth, learning disorders and blood sugar instability?
Breaking news: Multi-agency armed raid hits Rawesome Foods, Healthy Family Farms for selling raw milk and cheese
(NaturalNews) This is a NaturalNews exclusive breaking new report. Please credit NaturalNews.com. A multi-agency SWAT-style armed raid was conducted this morning by helmet-wearing, gun-carrying enforcement agents from the LA County Sheriff’s Office, the FDA, the Dept. of Agriculture and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control).
This story is now being followed and widely reported on InfoWars (www.InfoWars.com) and the Drudge Report (www.DrudgeReport.com). See updates below…
Rawesome Foods, a private buying club offering wholesome, natural raw milk and raw cheese products (among other wholesome foods) is founded by James Stewart, a pioneer in bringing wholesome raw foods directly to consumers through a buying club. James was followed from his private residence by law enforcement, and when he entered his store, the raid was launched.
Law enforcement demanded that all customers (members) of the store vacate the premises, then they demanded to know how much cash James had at the store. When James explained the amount of cash he had at the store — which is used to purchase product for selling there — agents demanded to know why he had such an amount of cash and where it came from.
James was handcuffed, was never read his rights and was stuffed into an unmarked car. While agents said they would leave behind a warrant, no one has yet had any opportunity to even see if such a warrant exists or if it is a complete warrant.
Law enforcement then proceeded to destroy the inventory of the story by pouring the milk down the drain and / or confiscating raw cheese and fresh produce for destruction. Video now posted at NaturalNews.TV: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A…
Note to NaturalNews readers: We believe this was an ILLEGAL raid being conducted mob-style by government thugs who respect no law and no rights. This is an all-out war by the government against people who try to promote healthy raw and living foods.
James is now being held at the Pacific division police department at Centinela and Culver in Los Angeles. He is being held at $123,000 bail with no possibility of using bail bonds. Law enforcement has demanded that if he comes up with the money to cover bail, he must disclose to them all the sources of that money. (This is an illegal demand!)
Massive public protests are needed to teach these criminal law enforcement agencies that they cannot illegally arrest and persecute individuals merely for buying and selling raw milk and cheese. We are organizing a public protest day in cooperation with James. Please watch NaturalNews for an announcement of that. Story is developing…
Right now, James needs help raising money with his legal defense needs. Our non-profit Consumer Wellness Center is currently serving as the collection point for donations. You may donate right now at www.ConsumerWellness.org (100% of the donations go directly to James’ legal defense needs, the Consumer Wellness Center keeps nothing).
See this video of James Stewart talking about his farm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foKg…
Story on InfoWars.com:
http://www.infowars.com/raw-food-ra…
Here’s background on Healthy Family Farms which was also targeted in the raid:
Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula, California:
“Healthy Family Farms is a sustainable, pasture-based farming operation. We raise all our livestock on pasture. We raise all of our animals from birth. We do not feed any of our animals soy, choosing instead to feed animals as they are designed to be fed. This results in healthy, sturdy animals needing no hormones, antibiotics, or other artificial “enhancements.” We harvest our animals humanely by hand before they are delivered to the farmers markets. We never freeze our products. In addition to farmer’s markets sales, we have an active CSA, which offers discounts to our valued members.”
Watch NaturalNews.com for more breaking news on this story. We are fed up with these illegal mob-style raids against the raw foods community! It is time to protest and fight back against tyranny!
Rawesome Foods founder to be prosecuted under special environmental crimes unit in LA
(NaturalNews) Details are still sketchy on this, as we’re breaking this news straight from the front lines in the aftermath of the government raid on Rawesome Foods in Venice, California (http://www.naturalnews.com/033220_R…), but NaturalNews is now being told that the LA County District Attorney will not be prosecuting James Stewart and the other “conspirators” who were arrested yesterday for selling raw milk. Instead, a special “environmental crimes” prosecutor will reportedly be prosecuting the case, which now consists of 13 criminal charges, some of which are felony crimes.
NaturalNews has not yet learned the name of this special environmental prosecutor, but the explanation smacks of the new environmental police who have been promoted through various propaganda outlets as being upstanding protect-the-Earth cops who arrest people for burning too much gas or using non-recyclable cups to drink beverages.
The issue of environmental police has been covered extensively by Alex Jones at InfoWars.com, where he refers to them as eco fascists. See this page to read more about how propaganda ads are being used to get people comfortable with the idea that “environmental crimes” should result in police slamming your face into the ground and handcuffing you:
http://www.infowars.com/audis-eco-f…
The videos on that page have been disabled, but here’s an alternate link of the green police Superbowl Ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58…
(Astonishing ad. You MUST watch it.)
The real aim of the green police agenda
Far from being a campaign merely to protect the Earth (which would be great if it were true), the new “green police” agenda is now being used as a way to terrorize innocent Americans as we’re seeing right now with Rawesome Foods. What’s especially frustrating about all this is that some of the Al Gore followers who largely supported the idea of the green police are, in fact, the very same people who are now being targeted for advocating raw milk. They had been misled, sadly.
You see, eco fascism was never really about protecting the planet and promoting sustainable living. It was always about enslaving the population, destroying health freedom, and mandating total corporate conformity at gunpoint. That’s the lesson we’re now learning from the Rawesome Foods raids, where LA County Sheriffs literally poured thousands of dollars worth of wholesome raw milk down the drain and arrested the buying club owner who will be prosecuted as by a special environmental prosecutor.
For the record, I’m a huge advocate of green living, renewable energy, and green consumer practices — but NOT at the cost of surrendering our Constitutional freedoms to a group of government badge-wearing eco terrorists who raid our raw milk clubs and charge people with conspiracy crimes for “mislabeling cheese.” I believe in solar power, I raise my own chickens and grow a portion of my own food NOT because Al Gore told me to, but because it just makes common sense in today’s unpredictable world to be prepared for food supply disruptions and power grid failures.
I try to minimize my eco-footprint on the planet not because some bureaucracy forces me to, but because I want to support the long-term continuation of sustainable life on our planet. Yes, I’m “green” in my daily practices, and at the same time I’m strongly invested in the powerful ideas of liberty and freedom for individuals. “Green” should never mean we have to mean we give up our freedoms. Forcing people to “go green” at the end of a gun isn’t acceptable. It must be done through education and awareness.
Green cops are no better than regular corrupt cops
It’s very clear to me that much of the political talk about saving the planet and going green was really just a campaign to encourage people to surrender their freedoms to yet another tyrannical enforcement bureaucracy that will abuse its power just like every other government agency abuses its power. “Green police” is just another excuse to put tens of thousands of new badge-wearing power trippers on the streets who will terrorize innocent citizens.
And that’s really, really sad, because I think the core idea of “going green” in our day-to-day lives is extremely valuable and valid. We should stop pouring toxic chemicals down the drain. We should collect rainwater and drink that instead of drinking toxic city water. And for that matter, our own government should stop dumping toxic fluoride chemicals into the water supply in the first place!
Meanwhile, the real environmental threats to our planet — such as the Fukushima meltdowns, the toxic chemicals produced by Big Pharma, and the DNA contamination of our planet with GMOs — remains totally ignored. That’s how this game always works: The big corporate criminals run free while the little people are persecuted in the name of “green.”
How insane is it, really, that this raw milk and cheese buyer’s club is now being prosecuted by the very same people who were given power by the green police movement?
All I can say is, beware of creating new police in any form, because when you create police, military or political forces that have power of your lives, they will ALWAYS abuse that power. Eventually, every bureaucracy or institution becomes totally corrupted by corporate influence, and then it no longer serves the people but the corporatocracy that really runs the show.
Notice that all the wealthy elite who pay no corporate taxes and fly around in private jets aren’t being targeted for arrest by the green police? There’s a reason for that. The whole campaign is designed to muzzle the little guy and remind the slaves that they’re really just slaves.
Pay attention, SLAVE. Drink your dead pasteurized milk, take your psychotropic drugs, gulp down your fluoridated water and shut the hell up. You’re under the control of the new eco fascists now, and it’s no longer just talk. It’s all coming to a farm near you.
(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.
With consumer interest in how food is produced on the rise, many food companies are now selling new lines of “natural” products – often priced unjustifiably higher than conventionally produced foods and only slightly lower than certified organic products. These purportedly “natural” products often mislead consumers about healthy food choices.
Market surveys show that health conscious consumers buy and trust products that prominently display the word “natural” on the front of food packages, even though the “natural” claim does not necessarily deliver any added health benefits to consumers above and beyond those of their conventionally manufactured counterparts.
ConAgra is one such company using a “100% Natural” labeling claim to win over consumers. ConAgra’s Wesson Oils, however, are anything but “100% natural” – because the oils are made from genetically modified (GM) plants.
ConAgra sells four types of widely used cooking and food preparation oils under the Wesson brand. All Wesson Oils are sold with a label on the front of the bottle that prominently states they are “100% Natural.”
[The Center for Food Safety is] looking for [consumers] who have purchased any of the following cooking oils in the last few years sold under the Wesson brand name: Canola Oil, Vegetable Oil, Corn Oil, and Best Blend. If you have purchased these products believing them to them to be “100% Natural” and not to contain genetically engineered ingredients, please contact… adeeringer@icta.org right away. Please include “Wesson” in your subject line and your state of residence in your email.
Total Video Length: 1:12:45 Download Interview TranscriptHere, Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety since 1997, and one of the United States’ leading environmental attorneys, shares his ideas about the ideal future of food.
Mr. Kimbrell is one of the United States’ leading environmental attorneys, and an author of articles and books on environment, technology and society, and food issues. He’s also the Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety, which he founded in 1997 as a way to prevent genetic engineering and sewage sludge remediation from becoming acceptable practices under the organic laws.
Organics and Beyond
But the Center for Food Safety has far grander goals than simply fighting for pro-organic laws.
“[W]e call it “Organic and Beyond,” Kimbrell says.
“We do that because we have to defend the organic standards. Over the last eight years, virtually the entire government’s all three branches, from judiciary to executive to congress, were trying to undermine the organic rule. It didn’t get as much publicity as it should have…
But we don’t want just to defend the organic rule in food. We want to evolve the ethic.
While organic is great and we need to defend that, we also want to make sure that we extend it to include for instance issues of animal welfare… We want to have bio-diverse crops… We want to make sure that our farming is local, in appropriate scale. We also want to make sure that we’re socially just. Just because we’re organic it doesn’t mean that we’re treating farm workers in a socially just manner.
Those are the beyond organic aspects of the future of food that we’re really interested in, which is a humane, local, appropriate scale, biodiverse, and socially just [system].
If we can think of the organic not as the ceiling for our food in the future but as the floor and we build this house, our future food house with those other elements… then I think we really will have done something.”
Saying “No” to Some Things is Saying “Yes” to Others
As you probably know, we are inundated with tens of thousands of chemicals these days, which have never before existed on Earth—many of which are extremely toxic. Much of the rise in chronic disease can be traced back to the excessive exposure to toxins from our food, air, water supply, and many of the personal- and household products we use on a daily basis.
What led us to this point?
In a word, technology.
For all the benefits and wonders many technologies bring, there are also some profound downsides, especially when they’re introduced without proper safety testing and forethought of the long-term consequences. Nuclear energy is just one glaring recent example. But this applies to food as well, as biotech has crept in to modify nature’s bounty in all sorts of ways, and mass-producing farms have altered the way food is grown to include massive amounts of chemicals.
“[O]rganic is really amazing because organic says: we’re looking at chemicals, and fertilizers and pesticides and we’re saying no. We’re looking at genetic engineering and we’re saying no. We’re looking at irradiated foods and we’re saying no,” Kimbrell says.
“We’re saying, progress sometimes means saying no to these technologies and saying yes to a far more natural, a far more sustainable way of doing business. It’s quite a remarkable revolution, not just because of the food, but because of the consciousness.
It’s saying progress doesn’t mean more and more exploitation and manipulation of nature through technology, it means more and more integrating the human into the entire natural context and learning to live within that context.”
“We Defend what We Love”
Kimbrell’s passion for this work stems from learning to love nature through his brother, who was an avid outdoorsman. He also worked on a farm for two and a half years before going to law school, and while he loved it, he wasn’t very good at it. The farmer he worked for suggested he go to law school instead, and “see what you can do for farms and for the whole community of life that makes for a healthy farming system.”
It turned out to be good advice. Some of his first work as an environmental attorney was in defending rivers and natural areas from exploitation, which, over time “evolved into an understanding of how technologies were hurting the natural world.”
“Those two things – my love of the natural world and my work on a farm– sort of coalesced, if you will, to create my desire to use my legal skills and whatever skills we have, to accomplish the goals that we just talked about,” Kimbrell says.
Food and the Environment
As Kimbrell states in this interview, food is the most intimate relationship you have with your environment.
“I’m always amused when people say, I’m not interested in food issues, I’m interested in environmental issues. I would say, “Whoa, let’s sit down for a second to talk about that.” There is no more intimate relationship that we have with the environment than what we eat.
To me it is a great moment for everybody out there to say, ‘I’m making a choice every day—a choice that I can control to a great extent—of what I eat, what my family eats, and to a certain extent what people around me eat.
That is to me a really important moment, because in that moment, you can reflect your views on social justice, your views on animal welfare, your views on the environment, on protecting our waters, protecting our air, protecting our soil, protecting our farm communities and protecting our community health. All of that is based in that decision that we all make several times a day.”
The Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
From Kimbrell’s perspective, as well as my own, genetically modified (GM) food is one of the biggest threats to life and health we currently face on this planet.
“It turns out that [genetic engineering] is a lot more difficult than people thought,” Kimbrell says. “There are a couple of reasons for that. For example, folks may remember the Human Genome Project. We were supposed to have about 100,000 to 140,000 genes. We only have about 20,000 genes it turns out. That’s about as many as a worm.
A kernel of corn has, any cell on that kernel has 35,000 genes… They just did the genome of wheat and it has 80,000 genes. So wheat has four times as many genes as humans.
It turns out that the biology of these crops isn’t some simple thing but extremely complex and it turns out there is a huge amount we do not know. So this idea that you can take a little piece of DNA called a gene and switch it around between plants and animals, and human and plants, and bacteria and plants, and get predictable results turn out not to be true.”
At the present time, the most prominent genetic modification of crops is the modification to make plants immune to herbicides.
Since you can spray these crops with large amounts of chemicals without killing the crop, this, in theory, should significantly reduce weed growth. However, in the years since the introduction of “RoundUp ready” corn and soy, we’ve witnessed increasingly profound downsides to these unnatural seeds, including brand new “super weeds” that are also impervious to RoundUp (glyphosate).
According to Kimbrell, we now have 10-20 million acres of these super weeds that you can’t kill. They’re the thickness of a baseball bat, and they loom six to seven feet tall!
GM Crops Demand HIGHER Levels of Toxic Herbicides and Pesticides
Additionally, what many fail to realize is the incredible increase in toxic chemicals being used on these crops, which eventually ends up in your stomach.
“[I]n the last two years we’ve sprayed 153 million more pounds of herbicide on our crops because of the corn and soy Roundup-ready crops…” Kimbrell says.
This dilemma is leading us further and further into a quagmire of increasingly toxic remedies.
“Right now, the FDA is looking to approve crops resistant to 2,4-D, which is an element in Agent Orange,” Kimbrell says. “I kid you not, Dow Chemical is doing this. Corn and soy that has been genetically engineered so you can spray as much 2,4-D (Agent Orange) on these crops as you want and it won’t kill them.
Now that Roundup is becoming less and less useful, they’re looking for newer and more toxic herbicides that they will bathe our crops in, in order to make money…
Monsanto is now coming up with Dicamba, which is extremely dangerous. It’s a volatilizing herbicide. In other words, you spray it and under certain weather conditions it’s going to go back up from the ground, re-volatilizing to a cloud and it could go a mile or two away and come back down and it will kill everything green. It’s a very toxic herbicide.”
This poses tremendous challenges for organic farmers, threatens our environment and human health everywhere, whether you happen to live in an agricultural area, or simply eat the food produced from these now highly toxic crops.
Where is the breaking point?
When will the food produced become too toxic to eat?
And what do we do then?
GM Foods Line the Pockets of Chemical Companies
There can be little doubt that the technology of genetically engineered crop seeds has little to do with saving the planet, and a lot to do with promoting herbicide use and increasing herbicide sales. The major purveyors of GM crop seeds also make the chemicals and herbicides to go along with those seeds.
These companies include:
Monsanto
Dow
Dupont
Syngenta
Bayer
BASF
“These are herbicide companies that have invented a way to sell a lot more of their chemicals,” Kimbrell says.
In the end, we may be over-run with superweeds that cannot be killed even by dousing it with Agent Orange, and GM crops that contaminate all its conventional and organic counterparts. That will be their legacy to our children and grandchildren…
Only Sustainable, Smaller-Scale Farming Can Successfully Feed the Planet
“I think one of the great things about the Organic and Beyond movement is that we are trying to go back and learn,” Kimbrell says. “We can use some modern technologies that help us better understand agronomy, but basically go back into a sustainable, smaller, more localized farming system.
What makes this so great is that two studies just came out of the UN, and it turns out that the way to feed the world is through small and medium sized organic and sustainable farms because they are creating a lot more food!
Right now, we have so many acres devoted to corn but you cannot live on corn alone. As a matter of fact you shouldn’t be living on much corn at all really. That’s not really food. That’s a crop. It’s a crop that’s used to feed animals, for biofuels and for fructose corn syrup and other additives.
Small medium sized farms have numerous diverse crops and animals. It’s a far more sustainable way to not produce massive crops but actual food.”
Change is an Uphill Battle that Oftentimes Requires Litigation
Unfortunately, despite the evidence showing that our current agricultural system is unsustainable, if not downright dangerous, change is hard to come by. The agricultural committees are primarily run by the agribusiness industry, which will always vote to protect their own best interests.
One effective way to slow down the madness, as it were, is through litigation. According to Kimbrell, litigation has halted the introduction of a number of genetically engineered crops, such as GM:
Wheat
Rice
Bentgrass
Market campaigns also successfully thwarted the introduction of GM tomatoes and potatoes.
“We can vote with our dollar in the marketplace by buying organic, by buying non-GMO,” Kimbrell says. “But we can also then make sure that we use the courts as best we can to halt some of these damaging technologies while we promote this Organic and Beyond vision. And everyone can get involved.”
Current Campaigns to Eliminate GMOs
The Center for Food Safety, along with a number of other organic businesses, organic organizations, and non-governmental organizations, are now starting a campaign to demand labeling of all GM foods. This is the most sensible strategy as over 90 percent of the public do not want GM foods and if they had a choice they would avoid Them. We don’t need legislation to outlaw GM, we just need an informed public to make the right choice.
Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in the 15 European Union nations, Russia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries around the world, but not the US or Canada…
“You’re looking at a food that offers you risk and no benefits. It is true because the companies and the government have never looked at it. We don’t know the exact extent of that risk but we know the risk is there.
What rationale person would ever pick a food if it was labeled? … The GMO offers me no additional benefits, and only additional health risks. What would you choose?
No one is going to choose the GMO version. That’s why they don’t want labeling.”
Another very important aspect of labeling is traceability of health effects. This can literally become a life and death issue. This is yet another reason why the industry is fighting tooth and nail to avoid labeling, because they know that without labeling it’s virtually impossible to trace any health effects that may be associated with the GM ingredients. This releases them from liability.
During the Presidential campaign of 2008, Obama put in writing a promise to support mandatory labeling on GMOs.
Also, if you don’t already have a copy of the Non-GMO Shopping Guide, please print one out and refer to it often. It can help you identify and avoid foods with GMOs. Also remember to look for products (including organic products) that feature the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal to be sure that at-risk ingredients have been tested for GMO content. Many health food stores will carry these products.
You can also download the free iPhone application that is available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.
By Steffan Browning Soil & Health Association of New Zealand
AgResearch’s genetically engineered (GE) goat experiments have a new bizarre twist with surviving GE pregnancies producing mostly [hermaphrodite*] offspring, that AgResearch staff term ‘goys,’ according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ.
An AgResearch farm manager recently revealed to Soil & Health and GE Free NZ, during a tour of its Ruakura GE animal field trial site, that most of the GE goats produced were [hermaphrodite]. It appeared that about 75% were “goys” with the remainder female.
“The “goys”, females in sterile male bodies, are to be induced into milking to ascertain whether the intended genetically engineered (GE) human protein will be expressed in the milk,” said Soil & Health – Organic NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning.
Previous GE cattle pregnancies have only 5% success, with the goats reported to have a success rate of possibly 15%, although one flock of about 18 recipient does failed to hold one GE embryo of a particular experiment. AgResearch has a track record of resultant GE offspring prone to a variety of disabilities including arthritis, respiratory distress, deformities and ruptured ovaries.(1)
“The 15 “goys” we saw had four true sisters, with one induced to milking at six months following AgResearch’s in-house ethics committee approval.”(2)
“Although grateful to AgResearch for hosting GE Free NZ President Claire Bleakley and myself for a tour of the AgResearch Ruakura GE animal facility, we were concerned at the continued animal welfare issues and the level of contaminated surface water that was draining off the experimental property.”
“Considering that a recent report showed AgResearch scientists intentionally corrupting monitoring research of risky microbial horizontal gene transfer (HGT), these unnatural reproductive outcomes and continued animal welfare issues, should spell the end of the Ruakura GE experiments,” said Mr Browning.(3)
“Good animal welfare records and a GE free reputation are very important for New Zealand’s trading image and increasingly demanded by consumers. Cruel experiments for a GE farming future are not what either New Zealanders or valuable overseas consumers want.”(4)
“AgResearch is at the cruel operator end of a business partnership with a dirty drug manufacturer, Genzyme, who has been investigated and fined by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for poor manufacturing practices.” (5)
“Knowing that it would be a nuisance for AgResearch and its overseas partners, the government disbanded the New Zealand Bioethics Council two years ago in full knowledge that distressing animal welfare issues are clearly predictable in GE research. The Bioethics Council had been calling for ethics reviews of all GE animal experiments.” (6)
“The AgResearch Ruakura facility currently is the only active GE field trial operating in the country, although Scion intends planting some GE pine trees at its GE field trial site in Rotorua this winter.”
Closing both field trials could return Aotearoa New Zealand’s environment to a full GE free status.
Soil & Health wants AgResearch’s cruel and unnatural animal experiments stopped immediately, the reinstatement of the New Zealand Bioethics Council, and for the government to move quickly towards desirable high value sustainable, animal friendly, GE free, and organic production.
Ed. Note: The press release uses the term “transgender” which is a misnomer. Transgender means to change gender, whereas hermaphrodites are born (usually sterile) with sex organs of both genders, or with the physical appearance of one gender and the DNA of the other. (See, e.g. Wikipedia on Hermaphrodite and on Intersex, which applies to humans.) Relating to humans, see this Intersex Society of North America FAQ page.
(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.
Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer from Cornwall (UK), investigates the reality of farming genetically modified crops in the USA since their introduction in 1996. He travels across the US interviewing farmers and other specialists about their experiences of growing GM.
Hart has been farming in Cornwall for nearly thirty years and has actively campaigned on behalf of family farmers for over fifteen years, travelling extensively in Europe, India, Canada and the USA.
During the making of the film he heard problems of the ever increasing costs of seeds and chemicals to weeds becoming resistant to herbicides.
US farmers told him that a single pass (one herbicide application) is a fallacy and concurred that three or more passes are the norm for GM crops.
As weeds have become more resistant to glyphosate there has been a sharp increase in the use of herbicide tank mixes (most of them patented and owned by the biotech companies). Astonishingly some farmers were now having to resort to hand labour to remove weeds.
Farmers have seen the costs spiral, for example, the price of seed has gone from $40 to over $100 per acre over the last few years.
Farmers referred to co-existence (the ability to grow GM crops next to non-GM and organic crops) as “unsolvable” and say that it does not work.
His work uncovers:
A huge “weed” problem;
The myth of co-existence;
Farmers trapped into the genetically modified biotech system; and
Huge price increases for seeds and sprays- well beyond the price increases farmers have received for their crops.
In short, the film shows US farmers urging great caution to be exercised by UK and European farmers in adopting this technology.
(NaturalNews) Soy, once touted as a medical miracle, has been outed. Ninety-one percent of the soy we consume is tainted by the filth of the GMO machine, literally the most quietly kept epidemic of our lifetime. Soy makes up a large portion of the diet for the chickens, pigs, and cows some of us eat. Even the vegetarian/vegan community is exposed as a number of meat substitutes list soy as a main ingredient. Soy and soybean oil have wiggled their way into a wide array of processed foods including salad dressings, peanut butter, tamari, mayonnaise, crackers, baby formula, baked good mixes, textured vegetable protein, and the list goes on. So unless you are eating anorganicversion of any of the above, there is a good chance you are exposing yourself toGMO soy.
Genetically engineeredcropsare destroying theenvironment, the health of indigenous communities, and ultimately ourhealthas end of the chainconsumers. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has reported a number ofstudies. Their results? Frightening. Think major issues like infertility (http://www.responsibletechnology.or…), immune problems, accelerated aging, and even changes in the cellular structure of major organs (http://www.responsibletechnology.org/). Also, as a result of theantibioticresistant genes within GEfood, they are the highly suspected culprits behind the new “superbug.” The animals involved in the studies ended up deformed, sterile, and dead.
Children are the most susceptible to these harmful effect, since they are constantly in a state of high growth; parents should take care. GMOfoods, and especiallysoy, have been tied to an increase in allergies, asthma, and a propensity to get antibiotic resistant infections.
None of this would surprise any of the individuals in variousSouth Americacountries that live near GM crops. South America is the world’s largest provider of soy (http://www.naturalnews.com/031382_G…).
A recent story in theUK Telegraph(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea…) revealed that the herbicides used on GM soy are so toxic that direct contact oftenresultsin severe illness and sometimesdeath. Petrona Villasboa is one of those that has faced direct loss. Her son was accidenatlly sprayed by one of the machines that are often spraying Monsanto’s Roundup on the surrounding crops. Silvino Talavera died that same day – and it was a horrible death (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea…). That’s not all – Non GMOfarmersare being displaced, and those that stay run a calculated risk. Mothers living close to GM farmland are twice as likely to have a fetus with a birth deformity.
Agent Orange was one of Monsanto’s first herbicides and the resulting effect to U.S soldiers and Vietnamese citizens was reprehensible(http://www.organicconsumers.org/mon…).
Scientist who push to hard to get a widespread scientific inquiry about the devastating effects of GE foods have had subtle and not-so-subtle pressure applied and been forced to back off their findings (http://www.responsibletechnology.or…).
Just as efforts are underway to assist these farmers in seeing the benefits of growing organic food as a means of survival and commerce, the end consumer must also make a change. Soy purchases must be viewed in a whole new light. The best way to protect your family from these potential harmful effects is to remove it from yourdietor stick to strictly organic soy and organicprocessed foods.
Product labeling is an area where loopholes and CSR seem to converge. It is precisely these loopholes that make it easy for companies to engage in a 
This is a very significant breakthrough for anti-GMO campaigners because it shows how much consumer choice actually affects companies. This is also a case for those companies and governments pushing for
Rawesome Foods Co-Op
