Food and Agriculture

Study: GMO’s Contaminate Crops 2.8 Miles Away

December 1, 2014 Christina Sarich, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Law

The United States has absolutely no buffer zones to protect non-GMO crops from GMO crops, and this simply won’t work considering a newly published, 10-year risk assessment study that has found that GMO corn can contaminate non-GMO corn varieties up to 2.8 mile away. This is exactly what organic farmers, and non-GMO supporters warned us about decades ago. Biotech has tried to minimize the obvious laws of nature that govern pollen dispersal. However, the new study looked at 216 sites in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium from 2001 to 2010 to analyze Bt pollen spread. Sampling methods were standardized but taken from within the same field and up to 4.45 km away.

Fracking Is Threatening Our Families, Pets And Food

November 30, 2014 Allison Wilson, www.independentsciencenews.org Educate! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Gas, health

The Real Cost of Fracking describes clearly these findings. However, the book is organized around the firsthand experiences of the animals and people behind seven of these case studies. These experiences include the loss of calves and the imposition of a herd quarantine due to a wastewater spill, bulls and Newfoundland dogs with ongoing reproductive problems, and horses on steroids due to respiratory problems. The authors meet children with elevated arsenic levels, adults experiencing dramatic weight loss, and whole families suffering from “shale gas syndrome” (their name for the combination of burning eyes, sore throat, headaches, nosebleeds, vomiting, diarrhea, and skin rashes often experienced by the people in their case studies). Some residents cannot enter their homes without becoming seriously ill and others have lost their animal breeding or farming-based livelihoods. . . . As new research documents the fracking boom’s contribution to global climate change, it has become clear fracking’s climate impact is much greater than originally claimed. Now, with The Real Cost of Fracking, Bamberger and Oswald give voice to those whose lives and health suffer already under that boom – and offer a forewarning to the rest of us.

United Nations Calls For An End To Industrialized Farming

November 27, 2014 Maryam Henein, www.truth-out.org Create! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Hunger, Industrialization, Poverty

In 2013, the United Nations announced that the world's agricultural needs can be met with localized organic farms. That's right, we do not need giant monocultures that pour, spray and coat our produce with massive amounts of poisons, only to create mutant pests and weeds while decimating pollinators and harming human health. Don't believe the hype: We do not need genetically modified foods "to feed the world." From my experience, many of these - how shall we say it - "worker bees" (i.e the GMO salesmen) who spread this propaganda, actually believe conventional tactics are necessary to ensure food security. They've drunk the Kool-Aid and cannot envision another possibility. The changes threaten their very existence.

New Documentary ‘Food Chains’ Sparks Protests

November 26, 2014 Coalition of Immokalee Workers, www.ciw-online.org Resist! Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Food and Agriculture, Labor Rights

Media coverage and word-of-mouth buzz around the new documentary “Food Chains” remained strong as the story of farmworker exploitation — and of the unprecedented partnership for social responsibility transforming the Florida tomato industry today — closed out its opening weekend in more than a dozen major cities. As Thanksgiving approaches, “Food Chains” is making Americans take a second look at the fruits and vegetables that grace their holiday tables. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to take advantage of the Thanksgiving break to catch it at a local theater or on iTunes. Then add your voice to the growing conversation about food justice!

Build Underground Greenhouse For Year-Round Gardening

November 23, 2014 Kimberley Mok, www.treehugger.com Create! Food and Agriculture, Garden, Greenhouses

Growers in colder climates often utilize various approaches to extend the growing season or to give their crops a boost, whether it's coldframes, hoop houses or greenhouses. Greenhouses are usually glazed structures, but are typically expensive to construct and heat throughout the winter. A much more affordable and effective alternative to glass greenhouses is the walipini (an Aymara Indian word for a "place of warmth"), also known as an underground or pit greenhouse. First developed over 20 years ago for the cold mountainous regions of South America, this method allows growers to maintain a productive garden year-round, even in the coldest of climates.

Steingraber: Who Will Come For The Lawbreakers Inside?

November 21, 2014 Sandra Steingraber, www.steingraber.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Seneca Lake

Sixteen We Are Seneca Lake protesters will face charges tonight—some at 5 pm and some at 7 pm—for peaceful acts of civil disobedience in the form of trespassing at the gates of Crestwood. I am one of them, and it’s likely that I will not be returning home tonight. We Are Seneca Lake is a campaign that was born on October 23, which the date of our first blockade, after we learned that approval had been granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to expand the storage of methane in crumbling salt caverns that underlie the west bank of Seneca Lake. In granting this approval, the federal government swept aside demonstrable evidence for reckless risks, including methane leakage, salt cavern collapse, and salination of our lake. These are all problems that have vexed other gas storage facilities similarly created from unlined, interbedded salt caverns.

Trade Deals Criminalise Farmers’ Seeds

November 19, 2014 GRAIN, www.grain.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Seeds

Trade agreements have become a tool of choice for governments, working with corporate lobbies, to push new rules to restrict farmers' rights to work with seeds. Until some years ago, the most important of these was the World Trade Organization's (WTO) agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Adopted in 1994, TRIPS was, and still is, the first international treaty to establish global standards for “intellectual property” rights over seeds.1The goal is to ensure that companies like Monsanto or Syngenta, which spend money on plant breeding and genetic engineering, can control what happens to the seeds they produce by preventing farmers from re-using them – in much the same way as Hollywood or Microsoft try to stop people from copying and sharing films or software by putting legal and technological locks on them. But seeds are not software. The very notion of “patenting life” is hugely contested.

Dramatic Correlation Shown Between GMOs And 22 Diseases

November 17, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, glyphosate, GMOs, Organic

The research highlighted below, "Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America," was published in The Journal of Organic Systems September and links GMO's to 22 diseases with very high correlation. We have reprinted many of the graphs from the study that show an incredible correlation between the rise of GMO crops that use the herbicide glyphosate and a wide range of disease. Glyphosate was introduced to the marketplace in 1974 but data on its use is only available since 1990. The study points out that research has shown that "glyphosate disrupts the ability of animals, including humans, to detoxify xenobiotics. This means that exposures to the numerous chemicals in food and the environment, such as endocrine disrupting chemicals and carcinogens, could be causing levels of damage that would not occur if the body were able to detoxify them." Correlation is not proof of causation. But the authors points out "we have data for 22 diseases, all with a high degree of correlation and very high significance. It seems highly unlikely that all of these can be random coincidence."

French Farmers Grow Angry

November 14, 2014 Alan Taylor, www.theatlantic.com Organize! Food and Agriculture, France, Labor Unions

French farmers unions organized a nationwide day of protest yesterday, staging demonstrations in villages and cities across France. Thousands turned out, expressing their anger at collapsing prices (due in part to sanctions against Russia), increased environmental regulations, cheap imports, and high costs. They took to the streets, dumping tons of produce, flinging manure on government buildings, burning effigies, and throwing apples at riot police. The farmers also urged their fellow countrymen to "eat French" and support local agriculture. Farmers dump pumpkins in front of an entrance to buildings of the Vaucluse prefecture in Avignon, southeastern France, on November 5, 2014, during a demonstration called by French farmers unions FNSEA (Federation Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles) and JA (Jeunes Agriculteurs).

Living With GMOs: A Letter From America

November 13, 2014 The Letter From America, www.theletterfromamerica.org Organize! Capitalism, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, usa

We are writing as concerned American citizens to share with you our experience of genetically modified (GM) crops and the resulting damage to our agricultural system and adulteration of our food supply. In our country, GM crops account for about half of harvested cropland. Around 94% of the soy, 93% of corn (maize) and 96% of cotton grown is GM. The UK and the rest of the EU have yet to adopt GM crops in the way that we have, but you are currently under tremendous pressure from governments, biotech lobbyists, and large corporations to adopt what we now regard as a failing agricultural technology. Polls consistently show that 72% of Americans do not want to eat GM foods and over 90% of Americans believe GM foods should be labeled.

California’s Strawberry Industry Is Hooked On Dangerous Pesticides

November 13, 2014 Bernice Yeung, Kendall Taggart and Andrew Donohue, www.beta.cironline.org Educate! California, Food and Agriculture, Pesticides

Paul Helliker had a job for Dow AgroSciences. As director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, Helliker had allowed some growers to ignore the restrictions for a pesticide called 1,3-Dichloropropene, which the state believed caused cancer. The loophole was supposed to be temporary. Helliker gave Dow, the company that manufactures 1,3-D, and growers two years to come up with a plan to follow his department’s rules or to create new ones. It took Dow less than a year to hand in its proposal. The company’s plan didn’t close the loophole, however. It greatly expanded it. Dow asked that the director allow growers across the state to use twice as much 1,3-D in a year as the rules permitted. And the company wanted it to happen quickly. Two Dow officials, Bryan Stuart and Bruce Houtman, closed their proposal by saying that “implementation will begin immediately upon receipt of approval” from Helliker.

How The Soil Is A Solution To Climate Change

November 9, 2014 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org Educate! Climate Change, Food and Agriculture

"I think climate change is Mother Nature's gift to us... And I believe it's not too late and that she is providing opportunities for us to change." — Mark 'Coach' Smallwood, The Rodale InstituteWhen Smallwood makes his expected arrival in the nation's capital on October 16, he will deliver a Rodale white paper—titled Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming (pdf)—to lawmakers alongside a broader message from a global coalition of organic farmers, scientists, and food justice advocates who argue that a global transformation in how the world grows its crops, manages its soil, and feeds its livestock is the key solution available to us that can best stop, even reverse, the growing and dangerous volumes of carbon and other greenhouse gases now pushing world's atmosphere and oceans beyond capacity. "We must bring awareness to this research and encourage the USDA and Congress to create legislation that supports organic farmers," said Smallwood on Wednesday night as he marked the halfway point of his trek. "Only organic farming can stop the chaos that we have created—chaos that is deeply impacting our environment on so many levels."

TPP Will Put Meat Agribusiness Into Overdrive

November 8, 2014 Ben Lilliston, www.iatp.org Educate! Capitalism, Food and Agriculture, TPP

The handful of big meat and poultry companies driving factory-style production in the U.S. do not consider themselves U.S. companies. They are global corporations, some with foreign parent companies, operating in multiple TPP countries. An alarmingly few companies control the U.S. protein market (as the industry refers to it). They are all global players operating in multiple sectors and multiple countries, including: JBS USA (beef, pork and poultry), Cargill (beef, feed), Tyson Foods (poultry, beef), Shuanghui/Smithfield (pork). If the meat companies get their way in TPP, rising exports from the U.S. could shift into overdrive. This means there will be more CAFOs in U.S. rural communities, more land needed for animal feed (yes, more corn and soybeans), more antibiotics used to raise these animals, and more water and air pollution from their giant manure lagoons.

90-Year-Old And Ministers Arrested For Feeding The Hungry

November 5, 2014 Mike Clary, www.sun-sentinel.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, Homeless, Law, Police the Police, Religion

Uniformed police shut down an effort to provide lunch to scores of homeless in Stranahan Park on Sunday, enforcing a law passed recently that puts new limits on outdoor feeding sites. At least three people were cited for violating the new ordinance, including two members of the clergy and a 90-year-old advocate who has handed out food to the homeless for more than 20 years. Arnold Abbott, who heads the group Love Thy Neighbor, said he had served only three or four of about 300 meals he had prepared when police ordered him to stop. Abbott, the Rev. Mark Sims, of St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church in Coral Springs, and the Rev. Dwayne Black, pastor of The Sanctuary Church in Fort Lauderdale, were each cited for willfully violating a city ordinance. Police issued them notices to appear in court, where they could be asked to explain their actions.

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