Food and Agriculture

World Opposes World Bank Global Land Grabs

March 17, 2015 Our Land Our Business, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Poverty, World Bank

Hundreds of civil society organizations are denouncing the World Bank’s role in global land grabs and its deceitful leadership on land issues. “The big question is whose interests the World Bank really serves. While they spend considerable time and money painting themselves as champions of the poor, the Bank has a battery of practices and policies that suggest a very different truth,” said Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute. Mittal points to the hypocrisy of the Bank’s claims to be interested in “securing farmers’ access to land” by highlighting that around the world, local communities face forced evictions and human rights abuses linked to Bank-financed projects as documented in recent years in Uganda, Honduras, and Cambodia. Just last year, the Bank created a $350 million facility to cover the risks of investments made by the Silverlands Fund, a private equity fund that has been accused of financing land grabs.

One Protestor Arrested, Stop Sprouts From Opening Store

March 17, 2015 Damin Esper, www.contracostatimes.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, Law, New York (NY)

One person was arrested on Saturday afternoon as protesters shut down Sprouts Farmers Market in Walnut Creek for nearly an hour. About 70 protesters targeted the grocery store because of its plans to build a store in Albany on land owned by the University of California. The store shut down after activists entered the store in a conga line of shopping carts. They assembled in the middle of the produce section, with a nine-piece band blaring music and leading chants. Eight Walnut Creek police officers eventually entered the store and herded the protesters out.

The Geopolitics Of GMOs

March 14, 2015 Colin Todhunter, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not essential for feeding the world, but if by some massive stretch of the imagination they were to lead to increased productivity, did not harm the environment and did not negatively impact biodiversity and human health, would we be wise to embrace them anyhow? The fact is that GMO technology would still be owned and controlled by certain very powerful interests. In their hands, this technology is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power, a tool to ensure profit. Beyond that, it is intended to serve US global geopolitical interests. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy.

Farmer Cooperatives, Not Monsanto, Supply El Salvador With Seeds

March 13, 2015 Nathan Weller, www.truth-out.org.com Create! Cooperatives, El Salvador, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Monsanto

In the face of overwhelming competition skewed by the rules of free trade, farmers in El Salvador have managed to beat the agricultural giants like Monsanto and Dupont to supply local corn seed to thousands of family farmers. Local seed has consistently outperformed the transnational product, and farmers helped develop El Salvador’s own domestic seed supply–all while outsmarting the heavy hand of free trade. This week, the Ministry of Agriculture released a new round of contracts to provide seed to subsistence farmers nationwide through its Family Agriculture Program. Last year, over 560,000 family farmers across El Salvador planted corn and bean seed as part of the government’s efforts to revitalize small scale agriculture, and ensure food security in the rural marketplace.

VIDEO: Selling Toxic Substances To Kids

March 12, 2015 AbFeldman, www.http://rt.com/shows/redacted-tonight Resistance Report Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, health, Monsanto

Redacted Tonight's Abby Feldman dives into the murky waters of diet beverages and artificial sweeteners. Non profit watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest is asking pop singer Taylor Swift to ditch her endorsement of Diet Coke, which is sweetened with aspartame and other chemicals, considering her young fan base. Aspartame has been linked to cancer and disease, though the FDA continues to allow its use in over 6,000 products. The FDA also allows the use of saccharin, which has been proven to cause cancer in rats, and some new sweeteners have been deemed "generally accepted as safe," and do not need to be thoroughly tested or listed as an ingredient.Now artificial sweeteners also appear to cause diabetes and obesity by altering our body's natural ability to detect satiety and regulate blood sugar- leading to overeating and glucose intolerance.

Veracruz: Lumbering & Gas Extraction Threaten Ancient Forests

March 11, 2015 Hermann Bellinghausen, translated Esther Buddenhagen, www.mexicovoices.blogspot.mx Educate! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Mexico

“Those trees have been there forever,” says Cristano Lechuga, the man in charge of guarding the radio and telephone antennas planted on the highest mountain in Huayacocotla, Veracruz, as he points to a deeply green peak, the highest on the rim around the Sierra Madre Occidental. This area in the mountains of northern Veracruz (and Puebla) is threatened today on all sides, not just with the killing off of its proverbial forests. For many, this is only a prelude to the true devastation to come. The imminent extraction of gas and oil will be brutal (and intensive, thanks to Enrique Peña Nieto’s so-called energy reform). It will take place in the northern-most mountains of Veracruz (and also of Puebla) and the always-coveted lowlands of the Huastecas.

Gene Giants Kick OCA Off SXSW Food Panel Discussion

March 7, 2015 Katherine Paul, www.organicconsumers.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs

If you’re headed to Austin, Texas, next week to attend the “Southbites: Feed Your Mind”session during Austin’s South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, don’t expect to hear an honest debate on the health and safety of genetically engineered crops or food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—at least not if the biotech industry can help it. According to Cathleen Enright, executive vice president food & agriculture, for the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO), there is nothing to debate. GMO agriculture is “sustainable” and GMO foods are “safe.” Anyone who says otherwise is making “scary” statements that have no basis in fact—because every shred of scientific evidence suggesting health or safety concerns related to GMOs “has been discredited,” Enright told me during a March 3 (2015) phone conversation.

The Apache Way: The March To Oak Flat

March 5, 2015 Roger Hill, www.truth-out.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Women, Land Rights

For years, Standing Fox and a dedicated core group of Apache activists have joined with a coalition of national tribes, environmentalists and concerned retired miners to oppose the land exchange transfer of the Oak Flat region to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, a mining company headquartered in London. Over the past decade, Arizona Republicans have attempted unsuccessfully to pass the land exchange legislation - twice in 2013 failing to get enough votes to bring it to the floor of the House of Representatives. The land exchange also violates a 1955 executive order by President Eisenhower that explicitly puts the Oak Flat Campground land off limits to future mining activity. Standing Fox joins us in the car to give us a quick tour of San Carlos.

Sour Grapes In ‘Wine Country’: Challenges To Wineries Erupt

March 5, 2015 Shepherd Bliss, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Commodification, Commons, Corporatism, Food and Agriculture

Fortunately, many grape-growers and smaller wineries continue to follow regulations and not over-build. They are a credit to agricultural and rural communities. On the other hand, a prominent banker, Chinese developer, and two large Napa County wineries are opposite examples that have generated mounting concerns, especially from Sonoma County’s rural residents who feel invaded. Retired Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill, of what has been the world’s largest bank, bought a winery and moved here part-time from New York City in 2012. He purchased a Sonoma State University (SSU) honorary doctorate by giving a $12 million dollar gift, with strings attached. Part of SSU’s elite Green Music Center was also re-named after him. This was the first time SSU gave an honorary degree in return for such financial benefits, rather than for academic achievement.

US Offering Its ‘Assistance’ To Push GMOs On Africa: Report

February 26, 2015 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Educate! Africa, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, usa

The U.S. government and multinational corporations have capitalized on African nations' voids in regulatory frameworks to push genetically modified (GM) crops, standing to gain lucrative corporate profits while decimating food sovereignty, a new report states. Released Monday from the African Centre for Biosafety and commissioned by environmental network Friends of the Earth International, Who benefits from GM crops? The expansion of agribusiness interests in Africa through biosafety policy (pdf) looks at how U.S. interests have used the mantra of addressing food security to push these crops despite local opposition. "The U.S., the world's top producer of GM crops, is seeking new markets for American GM crops in Africa," stated report author Haidee Swanby. "The U.S. administration's strategy consists of assisting African nations to produce biosafety laws that promote agribusiness interests instead of protecting Africans from the potential threats of GM crops."

Lessons From Coalition Of Immokalee Workers For Workers

February 26, 2015 Geoff Gilbert, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Food and Agriculture, Human Rights, Labor Rights, Social Change

Having received a Presidential Medal in January for its efforts to combat modern-day slavery, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, and its Campaign For Fair Food hit the road this month as part of its “Boot the Braids” campaign against Wendy’s. The tour spanned colleges and universities throughout the Northeast and Midwest to educate students, as well as create and solidify campus campaigns aimed at pressuring Wendy’s to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program, the only industry-wide social responsibility program in U.S. agriculture. Wendy’s is the last holdout of the big five fast food corporations — McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum Brands! and Subway — from the program, which has extended the Fair Food Code of Conduct to more than 30,000 workers, who make up over 90 percent of the Florida tomato industry. The many improbable successes of the CIW offer important lessons for countless other campaigns, especially those by low-wage workers in other industries.

Over 360 Farmer Lawsuits Against Syngenta

February 24, 2015 David Pitt, www.therepublic.com Resist! China, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Iowa

Farmers and farm businesses in 20 states have now filed more than 360 lawsuits against agricultural chemicals-maker Syngenta, and hundreds more may be coming as a federal judge organizes the complex case so they can move forward. The dispute centers around Syngenta's sale of a corn seed called Agrisure Viptera, which was genetically altered to contain a protein that kills corn-eating bugs such as earworms and cutworms. The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved it in 2010, and Syngenta first sold it to farmers in 2011. China, a growing importer of U.S. corn that refuses to buy genetically modified crops it hasn't tested, had not approved Viptera when Syngenta began selling it. In November 2013, China discovered the Viptera corn trait in several U.S. shipments.

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