GMOs

Mexico Scores Major Victory Against Bayer-Owned Monsanto

July 11, 2024 Nick Corbishly, Naked Capitalism. Resist! AMLO, Bayer, Corn War, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, GMOs, Mexico, Monsanto, Victory

After a four-year legal battle on multiple fronts with Mexico’s AMLO government, Monsanto has finally thrown in the towel. Last Tuesday, Mexico’s National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) announced that two Mexican divisions of Monsanto — now subsidiaries of German chemicals giant, Bayer, which in 2018 acquired Monsanto in arguably the worst ever corporate merger — had dropped their law suits against the Mexican government over its intention to ban genetically modified corn. As readers may recall, Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador signed a presidential decree in 2020 seeking to ban all use and importation of GMO corn and the toxic weedkiller, glyphosate.

Mexico Provides Non-GM Corn Opportunity For US Farmers

March 12, 2024 Ken Roseboro and Timothy A. Wise, Food Tank. Create! Farmers, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Mexico, Trade

United States commodity organizations have cheered on the U.S. government as it tries to get Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn declared in violation of our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, arguing that it cuts farmers’ export markets and sales revenues. But what if Mexico’s modest restrictions could instead turn out to benefit U.S. farmers who shift to premium non-genetically modified (GM) corn markets as international corn prices fall? It sounds counter-intuitive, but it might just be true. The math is pretty simple.

US ‘Exports Obesity’

June 21, 2023 Timothy A. Wise, Consortium News. Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, health, Mexico, Trade, US Imperialism

The U.S. government has escalated its conflict with Mexico over that country’s restrictions on genetically modified corn, initiating the formal dispute-resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It is only the latest in a decades-long U.S. assault on Mexico’s food sovereignty using the blunt instrument of a trade agreement that has inundated Mexico with cheap corn, wheat, and other staples, undermining Mexico’s ability to produce its own food. With the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador showing no signs of backing down, the conflict may well test the extent to which a major exporter can use a trade agreement to force a sovereign nation to abandon measures it deems necessary to protect public health and the environment.

US Court Rules QR Codes In Lieu Of GMO Labeling Are Unlawful

September 26, 2022 Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America. Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Health Care, USDA

A U.S. District Court has held that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s decision to allow genetically engineered (GMO) foods to only be labeled with a “QR” code was unlawful and that USDA must instead add additional disclosure options to those foods under USDA’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. The Court sent back to the agency the QR code portions of the 2018 Trump administration rules for GMO labeling that went into effect on January 1, 2022, which hindered consumer access with burdensome electronic or digital disclosures. “This is a victory for all Americans,” said Meredith Stevenson, Center for Food Safety (CFS) staff attorney and counsel in the case. “Today’s decision marks a key step toward ending the food industry’s deceptive and discriminatory GMO food labeling practices, which have kept consumers in the dark by concealing what’s in their products.”

The Fight Over Land And Genetically Engineered Agriculture

June 1, 2022 Mitchel Cohen, Covert Action Magazine. Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Russia, Ukraine

Ten months before Russian troops poured into Ukraine, that country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill into law authorizing the private sale of farmland, reversing a moratorium that had been in place since 2001. An earlier administration in Ukraine had instituted the moratorium in order to halt further privatization of The Commons and small farms, which were being bought up by oligarchs and concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. As documented in a series of critical reports over ten years by the Oakland Institute based in California*,* the moratorium on land sales in Ukraine aimed to prevent the acquisition and consolidation of farmland in the hands of the domestic oligarch class and foreign corporations. The marketization of farmland is part of a series of policy “reforms” that the International Monetary Fund stipulated as a precondition enabling Ukraine to receive $8 billion in loans from the IMF.

Why Seed Companies Fear México

November 20, 2021 Ernesto Hernández-lópez , Inter Press Service News Agency. Create! Farming, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Mexico, Seeds

Orange, California - Last month México’s Supreme Court provided hope for biodiversity, especially in the Global South, while flaming fear for seed companies. In a historic step, it ruled for corn advocates and against genetically modified (GMO) corn. The decision was a momentous act in country where maíz (corn) carries daily and sacred significance. This promises a way out of stale GMO debates that plague us. One side argues that genetic changes to seeds increase harvests. Seed companies and industrial agriculture make up this side. Another side says GMOs damage plant DNA. Small-scale farmers and environmentalists stand on this side. Neither addresses the other. This standstill keeps GMO policies ineffective. The court’s decision offers a path out of this by cutting at seed company positions.

Mexico To Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn

February 26, 2021 Timothy A. Wise, Inter Press Service. Create! Food and Agriculture, glyphosate, GMOs, Mexico

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree to phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn. His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock. Under NAFTA, the United States has seen a 400% increase in corn exports to Mexico, the vast majority genetically modified yellow dent corn. The bold policy moves fulfill a campaign promise by Mexico’s populist president, whose agricultural policies have begun to favor Mexican producers, particularly small-scale farmers, and protect consumers alarmed by the rise of obesity and chronic diseases associated with high-fat, high-sugar processed foods.

The Gates Foundation’s “Green Revolution” In Africa

July 16, 2020 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Bill Gates, Food and Agriculture, GMOs

Fourteen years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with the stated goal of doubling productivity and incomes by 2020 for 30 million small-scale farming households while reducing food insecurity by half in 20 countries. AGRA claims success, but a broad-based civil society alliance has just published "False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)," in which they conclude that the number of Africans suffering extreme hunger has increased by 30 percent in the 13 countries that AGRA eventually focused on. I spoke to researcher and writer Timothy A. Wise, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and author of the book Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

Brave New World: What You Need To Know About Gene-Edited Farm Animals

January 13, 2020 Pat Thomas, Organicconsumers.org Educate! Animals, Farms, Food and Agriculture, GMOs

For decades, the biotech industry has spun a narrative around genetically engineered crops that could be summed up very simply as “jam tomorrow, instead of bread and butter today.” Sustained—and financed—largely on the promise of spectacular success at some unidentified point in the future, the research and development of new types of GMO foods, made with a whole host of new genetic engineering technologies, has gathered pace in recent years.

An Inside Look At How Monsanto, A PR Firm And A Reporter Give Readers A Warped View Of Science

August 7, 2019 Paul D. Thacker, Huffpost.com Educate! GMOs, Monsanto, Science

Agricultural giant Monsanto has spent much of the last decade attempting to polish its public image amid campaigns to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and horrifying stories about how the company treats anyone who might get in its way. In 2013, it enlisted Ketchum PR ― the public relations firm for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian natural gas giant Gazprom and many governments known for human rights abuses ― to help. To reboot the national dialogue, Ketchum created a campaign called GMO Answers...

USDA Opens The Door To New Untested, Unlabeled GMOs

July 27, 2019 Pat Thomas, Organicconsumers.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Labeling, USDA

On June 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed to overhaul longstanding regulations governing genetically modified organisms (GMO). The proposed new rule would revise the agency's current method for regulating genetically modified plants, and would exclude newer so-called “gene-edited” GMOs. In a statement, the USDA said the new rule came "in response to advances in genetic engineering." A week later, in the political equivalent of a one-two-punch, President Trump bolstered the USDA’s proposal by signing an executive order directing the USDA...

The Complete History Of Monsanto, The World’s Most Evil Corporation

April 30, 2019 Hanzai E, Wakingtimes.com Educate! Corporations, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Monsanto

Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of death, atop a mountain of rotting corpses, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people. As true champions of evil, they won’t stop until…well, until they’re stopped! But what is Monsanto and how did they get to be so obscenely evil in the first place? I think that’s the best place to start this journey, so grab a few non-GMO snacks or beverages and let’s go for a ride into the deep, murky sewers of their dark past.

Russia’s Clear GMO Labeling Rules Reach The Shelves Across Eurasian Economic Union

January 3, 2019 Staff, Sustainablepulse.com Create! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Labeling, Russia

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), including the countries of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus, has introduced clear GMO labeling on all food and supplement products containing genetically modified organisms, starting from last week. Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) announced in 2016 that it was inviting all EAEU countries to apply a “GMO” label on the packaging of food products that contain genetically modified organisms. The Rospotrebnadzor and the EAEU confirmed the proposed amendments to the technical regulations on the labeling of food products in the EAEU, despite objections from some European Union food manufacturers...

The Creator Of GMO Potatoes Reveals The Dangerous Truth – Exclusive Interview

October 11, 2018 Staff, Sustainablepulse.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Science

It is amazing that the USDA and FDA approved the GM potatoes by only evaluating our own data. How can the regulatory agencies assume there is no bias? When I was at J.R. Simplot, I truly believed that my GM potatoes were perfect, just like a parent believes his or her children are perfect. I was biased and all genetic engineers are biased. It is not just an emotional bias. We need the GM crops to be approved. There is a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed, to justify our existence by developing modifications that create hundreds of millions of dollars in value. We test our GM crops to confirm their safety, not to question their safety.

Gene Editing In Agriculture Poses New Risks To Health, Environment

September 14, 2018 Staff, Foe.org Educate! Environment, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, health

With the breakneck speed of recent developments in genetic engineering that could be used to alter DNA in plants, animals, bacteria, and even humans, the report examines the growing body of scientific studies highlighting the risks and unintended consequences from the use of genetic engineering techniques like gene editing in agriculture. “Increasingly, scientific publications are revealing the genetic errors that gene-editing can create. It’s becoming clear that, if gene-edited GMOs are to be used in U.S. agriculture, they need to be carefully scrutinized for any unexpected effects,” said co-author Dr. Janet Cotter of Logos Environmental. “The real question is whether GMOs are needed in agriculture at all. Advanced conventional breeding is now highly effective at producing the traits in plants and animals that both farmers and consumers desire and entails less risks to the environment and human health.”

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