Bad Move by the FDA

Monsanto Herbicide-Resistant Crops Approved

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved plantings of three genetically engineered (GE) crops in as many weeks, including Monsanto Co.'s Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa that are engineered to tolerate Roundup Ready weed-killing herbicide.


The USDA on February 11 also legalized, without restriction, the world's first GE corn crop meant for biofuel production. Biotech giant Syngenta's Event 3272 seed corn will simplify ethanol production and is not meant to feed animals or humans.


The USDA disappointed GE critics again last week when it fully deregulated Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta's Event 3272 GE corn. The corn is genetically engineered to produce an enzyme that converts starch to sugar, making it easier to process the corn and turn it into the biofuel ethanol.

Has anyone fought against Monsanto or Syngenta?

A 2004 investigation conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that Syngenta had illegally distributed GE seed corn engineered to produce an unregistered pesticide on over 1,000 occasions to farmers in the US, South America and Europe.


The EPA fined Syngenta $1.5 million in 2006 for distributing the seed corn, which produced a then unregistered pesticide called Bt 10.

The same EPA targeted by Gingrich and others? Coincidence? Or a sign of "follow the money trail?"

People before Profits!

Franken-birds

Scientists Test New Genetically Modified Chicken That Can't Transmit Bird Flu

I remember when the warnings about bird flu first came out. If you found a dead bird in your front yard, you were told to stay clear for fear of the disease spreading. And while the avian flu may currently be overshadowed by such delicious food borne diseases as Mad Cow, salmonella, and e coli, it most certainly remains a threat in the back of many a poultry eater's mind. But recently, British scientists have started testing transgenic cluckers that can't transmit bird flu.


Birds that have the disease can still get sick and die as a result, but even still, the disease won't spread to other birds. While vaccinations have been used to keep the deadly disease at bay, the problem is that while the vaccinated birds may not develop the flu, the virus can still travel from bird to bird and then onto humans in some cases.


According to Popsci,


The chickens were modified to express a piece of RNA that acts as a decoy to a key viral enzyme. The polymerase is tricked into binding to this RNA, rather than binding to the virus‘ genome and helping it replicate. The result is that the virus does not spread to other chickens.


In the US, much of our GMO crops were modified to create resistance, for example, Monsanto's Round Up Ready Seeds. But their resistance comes at a price. The Roundup Ready seeds immunize plants against Roundup, which is a powerful herbicide also made by Monsanto. I wrote over at TreeHugger about how this corners farmers. Farmers can then readily apply Roundup to kill everything but the immunized seeds. Once the seeds are planted, farmers have to come back to Monsanto for more because the powerful herbicide has basically killed everything in its path along with causing soil erosion, nitrate leeching, and water contamination.


That's not to say that the side effects of GMO animals have been determined because we're still quite a ways off, though this isn't the first creation of its kind. Christine over at TreeHugger wrote that Canada has approved limited production of animals dubbed "enviropigs™," pigs that are modified to produce 65 percent less phosphorous in their poop and urine.

Gmo crops, GMO chicken... What's next? Chickie Nobs?

Stick to religion

Papal Science Advisors Say World's Poor Need GM Crops; Scientists Have Moral Duty to Develop Them

The Vatican's science advisors have come out in support of genetically modified crops, saying that they scientists have both the right and moral duty to produce them to help the world's poor, New Scientist reports. The 40 member group, led by the scientist who developed so-called golden rice which has extra vitamin A, said that there has not been one documented case where GM crops have harmed consumers or the environment....


Quoted in the original, Friends of the Earth is right on when it comments, "We need food and farming policies that put the needs of people before the profits of a handful of GMO companies."


Even if it can be conclusively proven that there is no environmental and health risk from specific GM crops, the inherently unbalanced and inequitable situation created by a small number of multinationals controlling so much of the world's food supply--and putting an end to the age-old and vitally important for sustainable food security practice of seed saving--remains an intractable problem.


It is no true or lasting help to the world's poor to develop GM crops that are drought-tolerant if it just continues to keep them perpetually indebted to corporate overlords.

Wonder how much stock the Vatican owns in Monsanto?

We are all really in trouble

How One Farmer Turned Against Chemicals

A run-in with Roundup herbicide was a transformative episode in farmer Eric Herm’s shift toward sustainable agriculture. A fourth-generation farmer, Herm tells the tale in the book Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth: A Path to Agriculture’s Higher Consciousness (Dream River Press):

In May of 2009, my neighbor had his Roundup Ready cotton sprayed by Helena Chemical Company less than 40 yards from my home garden. The Roundup herbicide drifted and wiped out over 800 garlic bulbs, and all of my tomato, pepper, potato, bean, and corn plants. Within 48 hours every single plant in my garden curled up into a fetal position. Leaves curled upward, cupped around the edges, and plants showed visible signs of suffering. For three or four days I couldn’t figure out what had happened until I discovered my neighbor had sprayed Roundup a few days previous. I flew into a rage yet maintained my cool talking to Helena company officials. They were very courteous yet proceeded to blame a plane spraying half a mile away to the southwest.

Herm had tissue from his dead crops tested, and the results came back positive for glyphosate, the main active ingredient in Roundup. Still, the local Helena Chemical Company store manager insisted that his product wasn’t to blame.

That’s how these chemical companies work. Did I receive the $4,000 in damages? Take a wild guess. They put their lawyer against yours, and these chemical companies have a lot more money to spend on attorney fees than an individual farmer. Thanks to my neighbor and Helena Chemical Company, I lost an entire season of garlic, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, beans, and corn as months of hard work spiraled down the drain.

Tomato, people, onion, garlic, and potato plants are extremely sensitive to Roundup. One whiff and their leaves curl upward and they are unable to produce healthy, normal-sized fruit. Very frustrating when you begin an entire garden from seed. Money cannot replace healthy food. … As long as we continue to think Roundup Ready crops are the only answer, agriculture is doomed.

Herm’s writing has a folksy, ticked-off tone, kind of a Jim Hightower with a stronger streak of rural individualism, a distrust of big government, and a dash of new age spirituality. But his overall message is positive and forward thinking: Our industrial, chemical-intensive farming practices are destroying the land and harming our health and security, and we must change them:


“It is up to you and me—us. We the people,” he writes. “If not us, if not now … well, then we are all really in trouble.”

How many of your neighbors spray Roundup, herrbicides, pesticides indiscriminately on their lawns - into the wind and onto your vegetable plants? All for that "perfect" blade of grass, tomato, rose... But I think a healthy life is the "perfection' we should strive for. Time to garden with nature in mind.

Related articles

• Monsanto teams up with Sumitomo Chemical (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Monsanto's herbicide Roundup linked to birth defects (foodfreedom.wordpress.com)

Weed Killer...More Death?

Image via WikipediaMonsanto, Sumitomo Chemical Team Up To Make Advanced 'Roundup Ready PLUS' Herbicide

Monsanto Co. said Tuesday it's partnering with weedkiller-maker Sumitomo Chemical Co. to develop a new platform for Monsanto's genetically altered crops.
Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, develops genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" crops that are resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The company said its new partnership will help it develop a new weed management platform called Roundup Ready PLUS.
The effort is aimed at allowing farmers to get the most out of Roundup Ready crops by using the platform's recommendations and receiving financial incentives, Monsanto said.
The companies did not disclose financial terms of the partnership.
Farmers have become concerned that some weeds are growing resistant to Roundup, giving Monsanto the incentive to introduce new chemicals into its product line. The deal will give Monsanto access to herbicides like Valor SX and Valor XLT.

Need another reason to avoid GMO foods? I didn't think so.

GMO and you

Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters

"This study was just routine," said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov, in what could end up as the understatement of this century. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. What he discovered may uproot a multi-billion dollar industry.

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

And if this isn't shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths—a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.

Alexey Surov says, "We have no right to use GMOs until we understand the possible adverse effects, not only to ourselves but to future generations as well. We definitely need fully detailed studies to clarify this. Any type of contamination has to be tested before we consume it, and GMO is just one of them."

I have a beard already so I don't need hair growing in my mouth.
Lesson : read the labels and buy organic!

Food from the lab

Farmers Who Plant Biotech Crops Grow Pesticide-Resistant Weeds

Weeds are developing resistance to the herbicide that genetically engineered crops are designed to tolerate, finds the first major assessment of how biotech crops are affecting all U.S. farmers, released today by the National Research Council.

Since genetically engineered crops were introduced in 1996, at least nine species of weeds in the United States have evolved resistance to glyphosate, a main component in Roundup and other commercial weed killers, according to the report.

The weeds have become resistant to glyphosate largely because of repeated exposure, the assessment found.

Did you ever think what it is doing to you when you eat that crop? If it is changing weeds, what is it doing to your liver, kidney...?

Say No to GMO

Image via Wikipedia

Speak Out on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. USDA failed to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) before deregulating the crop. An EIS is a rigorous analysis of the potential significant impacts of a federal decision. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the GE plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an EIS. They released a draft EIS on December 14, 2009. Draft EIS | Supplemental documents
It appears USDA again intends to deregulate GE alfalfa without any limitations or protections for farmers, consumers or the environment. In the new EIS, the USDA has completely dismissed the fact that GE contamination will threaten export and domestic markets and organic meat and dairy products. And, incredibly, USDA is claiming that there is no evidence that consumers care about GE contamination of organic. We know that's not true.
Your Participation is Critical! Take Action by February 16
A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this analysis for any GE crop, so the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops. The failure of the agency to address the impacts of GE alfalfa will have far-reaching consequences for farmers and organic consumers. Let's not be Monsanto's guinea pigs!

Whether you call it GMO or GE - not for me. It is amazing how GMO/GE are creeping their way into our food stream and even our own gardens through seed companies. A little scary? No, a big scary!