Food and Agriculture

Monsanto’s Very Bad Week: Three Big Blows for GMO Food

October 26, 2013 Ocean Robbins, www.alternet.org Create! Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Monsanto

It hasn't been a good week for Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry. Just three days ago, Mexico banned genetically engineered corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that, effective immediately, no genetically engineered corn can be planted in the country. This means that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country's borders. At the same time, the County Council for the island of Kauai passed a law that mandates farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The bill also requires a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes -- among other locations.

VIDEO: 9.70 Documentary About Colombia Free Trade And Privatization Of Seeds

October 26, 2013 Victoria Solano & Marco Cartolano, www.clementinafilms.com.ar Educate! Food and Agriculture, Monsanto, Video

9.70 documentary, tells the story of a group of farmers from which the Colombian Government seized and destroyed 70 tons of rice. In a very short amount of time, the Colombian government approved a series of laws and resolutions in order to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States as quickly as possible. One of the conditions set by the US was to create a legislation for the 'privatization' of seeds. The documentary examines the impact caused by these decisions, exemplifying them by using the case of Campoalegre, a southern Colombian town where the resolution was set in motion. In 2011, the Agency responsible for monitoring agricultural activities in Colombia (ICA) came to the town and seized 70 tons of rice, then returned with the police, and finally destroyed the seeds by burying them in a landfill for considering them illegal.

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Building A National Culture Of Resistance

October 25, 2013 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Corporatism, Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Nuclear Energy, Poverty, Tar Sands

We are starting to see how the movement is in fact changing the political system without focusing on elections, but instead by focusing on the big issues of a failed economic system that creates inequity and puts profits before the people and the planet. An example is the extreme austerity measures, including threats to Social Security and Medicare, that need our attention. Building alliances and creating solidarity across the movement are critical ingredients to our success. In the end, we are confident that it is not who is in office, but the environment we create for them to operate in. We need to continue to protest when elected officials go off in the wrong direction – which is too often – but always build a mass national movement of communities across the country networked together and working to end the rule of money in each of its manifestations and to shift power to the people.

Got Food Security? Look to the World’s Growing Social Movements

October 24, 2013 Eric Holt Gimenez, www.huffingtonpost.com Create! Environment, Food and Agriculture

Agroecologically-managed smallholder farms like those in Latin America's Campesino a Campesino Movement increase yields; conserve soil, water and biodiversity; and capture carbon to cool the planet. Urban farms from Havana to Bangkok are steadily increasing food production and improving livelihoods. Community-supported Agriculture groups around the world provide fresh, healthy food for members and a living income for local family farmers. Hundreds of municipal Food Policy Councils and Food Hubs are implementing citizen-driven initiatives to keep the food dollar in the community where it can recycle up to five times, thereby creating jobs and kick-starting local economic development.

Decolonizing The Native Indian Diet

October 24, 2013 Kevin Taylor, www.america.aljazeera.com Create! Education, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Rights

History and health came together one dark November evening for Marty Reinhardt at Northern Michigan University. Reinhardt, a professor in the Native American Studies program, was helping to serve up fry bread, Indian tacos and other offerings at the annual First Nations Food Taster, a fund-raising event for the Native American Student Association, when he had an epiphany: “Would my ancestors even recognize this as food?” Much has changed between Reinhardt and his ancestors. Indians have long since been removed to reservations, and diets based on seasonal hunting, fishing, gathering and gardening have been replaced by government-supplied commodity foods. Indians have suffered a crisis in diet-related obesity and health issues.

Examples of Creative Urban Agriculture From Around The World

October 23, 2013 Kaye Spector, www.ecowatch.com Create! Food and Agriculture

City dwellers are raising animals, growing fruits and vegetables, and even beekeeping to improve their food security and safety, reduce their carbon footprint and improve their intake of nutritious food. Urban farmers have to think creatively to maximize space and fit their operations into the urban environment These five examples from Food Tank illustrate the innovative forms of urban agriculture around the world. 1. Food Field, Detroit, MI Food Field offers a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that provides nutritious food and economic opportunities for the neighborhood. Noah Link and Alex Bryan created Peck Produce in 2011 and converted the former site of an elementary school into a revitalized farm.

Scientists & Activists Oppose GMO Foods

October 22, 2013 Sean Poulter, www.dailymail.co.uk Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Monsanto

Eighty-five scientists have joined forces to challenge the claims of biotech giants and the UK government that GM food is safe for humans. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, who has responsibility for food and farming, and the industry have embarked on a huge public relations exercise to win over a sceptical public to genetically modified food. The campaign is built on an assurance that the food is safe to eat and could defeat a host of ills from malnutrition in the Third World to blindness in children. GM supporters also insist crops are safe for the environment and to be used as animal feed. However, these assurances have been questioned by the scientists, who warn there is a serious lack of independent research into the health effects of GM food. Studies involving feeding trials with animals suggest eating GM food could cause real harm, such as allergies, inflammation of internal organs and even breast cancer.

NY School Goes Vegetarian, Student Test Scores Improve

October 21, 2013 Kaye Spector, www.ecowatch.com Create! Education, Food and Agriculture, Health Care

A public school in Flushing, NY that was the first in the nation to offer a 100 percent vegetarian lunch menu reported recently that students have improved attendance, test scores and energy in the wake of the change. Students are still allowed to brown-bag, but the overwhelming majority—about 90 percent—of students are choosing the veggie-based cafeteria food, which includes organic roasted tofu, braised black beans and falafel. After one semester, the number of students at the school who were classified as overweight and obese dropped 2 percent, Principal Bob Groff said. He believes that number is down even more this year. The school, which has more than 400 students in grades pre-K through 3, changed its lunch menu in January.

Monsanto Shills: Government and Corporate Media

October 21, 2013 Mark Karlin, www.truth-out.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, Government, Media, Monsanto

Recently Truthout reposted an article by Belén Fernández that reported on "Monsanto, Rural Debt and the Suicide Epidemic in India" to focus on just one of the stories featured in Censored 2014. Truthout followed up with an interview with Fernández on Monsanto, the corporate mainstream media under-reporting stories such as the suicide epidemic in India and buffoonish commentary on GMOs by the likes of Thomas Friedman. BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ: I think alternative reporting definitely helps publicize certain issues, especially among certain sectors, and sometimes puts issues on the radar for the general public, but it's still often difficult to challenge the authority that the mainstream media commands. One can only hope that the media scene will continue to evolve as the process of reconciling reality with mainstream reporting becomes more and more impossible.

This Week In Pictures, October 14-20

October 21, 2013 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Government, Human Rights

This week we saved pictures of a variety of resistance actions that took place all over the world to give you a glimpse of the global movement for peace and justice. Workers from McDonalds and Walmart went on strike for better wages, conditions and to support co-workers who were fired for organizing. Blockades were ongoing in Argentina to stop Monsanto and in Canada to stop SWN Resources from fracking. Thousands protested in Rome, Italy against high unemployment and budget cuts. In Hamburg, Germany, they protested high rents and in France, students protested in solidarity with two Roma students who were expelled. Farmers in Guanajuato, Mexico blockaded the highway in protest of corn and grain prices and in Spain they gathered to call for "cambiar todo." In the Maldives, people protested for voting rights. In Fort Edward, NY, people came from all over the continent to stand in solidarity with workers protesting General Electric. One participant said that every type of union was present. Thousands gathered at PowerShift, and thousands protested around the world for the Global Frackdown.

Immokalee Workers Deliver on ‘Freedom From Want’

October 20, 2013 Greg Kaufmann, billmoyers.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) was honored at the Roosevelt Institute’s Four Freedoms Awards on Wednesday night. Having followed the organization’s work for seven years, I believe their effectiveness is unmatched, and their achievements constantly offer a reason for hope. The CIW way is non-hierarchal, led from the grassroots, fearless and savvy — and they have defeated Goliath so many times that they can no longer be considered a David. The group realized that the real power was with the corporate buyers whose constant demand for lower tomato prices exerted significant downward pressure on farmworker wages. In 2001, the CIW launched its Campaign for Fair Food – forging an alliance between consumers and farmworkers — and initiated the first-ever national boycott of a major fast food chain: Taco Bell.

Farmworkers: Boycott Haagen Dazs Strawberry

October 20, 2013 William Rogers, www.leftlaborreporter.wordpress.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, Worker Rights and Jobs

Migrant farmworkers at the Sakuma Brothers Farms in Washington state’s Skagit Valley are on strike for a fair wage and fair treatment and are asking supporters to boycott the farm’s berries and products such as Haagen Dazs strawberry ice cream that use the farm’s berries. “Many of us have been coming to Skagit County to pick strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries for Sakuma Brothers Farms for years,” reads a statement by Familias Unidas por la Justicia (Families United for Justice), the workers’ union. “Every year that we have been coming to Sakuma Farms we have tried to ask for better wages, housing, and treatment from the Sakuma family. After years of trying to change the conditions, we felt it was necessary to organize into the union that we are today to make a lasting impact.”

GMO Foods Advocate Urges Industry Accept Labeling

October 20, 2013 Alex Formuzis, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Food and Agriculture

People are getting increasingly scared of GMOs precisely because the industry is fighting a rearguard battle not to tell people which foodstuffs contain them. [The industry’s tactic] has to be the worst PR strategy ever: can you think of a single analogy where an industry uses every media tool, every electoral and legal avenue possible to stop people knowing where their own products are used? This is the opposite of advertising—instead of telling people about the benefits of your product and encouraging them to seek it out, you have to smuggle your core products into peoples’ shopping baskets so that they can only buy them either unknowingly or by mistake. Does anyone here [think] this is a winning strategy? … You have to stop opposing labeling. Instead, you have to embrace the consumer right to know.

VIDEO: Last 48 Hours Delineate Lines Of Struggle In Canada

October 20, 2013 No One Is illegal, www.noii-van.ca Resist! Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Government, Indigenous Rights

The lines have been drawn. The Harper government declares that it will stop at nothing to 'develop' oil resources in Canada even though this will destroy the environment, pollute the land, air and water and worsen climate change. Indigenous communities and their allies will peacefully resist this destruction using the treaties, the courts and non-violent tactics. This is the struggle. It is up to the people to unite in solidarity and prevail to protect Mother Earth and our future.

Manitoba Chief Shows Support For Anti-Fracking Protest

October 20, 2013 Staff, www. metronews.ca Educate! Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Government, Indigenous Rights

The protest in New Brunswick over shale gas exploration is drawing support from a Manitoba chief. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs says Grand Chief Derek Nepinak is travelling to the community of Rexton to stand with the Elsipogtog First Nation and other protesters. The assembly says Nepinak will present medicine and a beaver pelt to the leaders of the New Brunswick First Nation. A meeting of protesters and the community is planned for later today in Elsipogtog. About 50 people are gathered in the rain at the protest site on Route 134, where tents have been set up. The protesters want SWN Resources to stop seismic testing and leave the province.

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