Monsanto

Guatemalan Activists Defeat ‘Monsanto Law’

September 12, 2014 Weekly News Update on the Americas, www.weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com Resist! GMO, Guatemala, Law, Monsanto

Guatemala’s unicameral Congress voted 117-111 on Sept. 4 to repeal Decree 19-2014, the Law for Protection of Procurement of Plants, in response to a lawsuit and mass protests by campesinos and environmentalists. The law, which was to take full effect on Sept. 26, provided for granting patents of 25 years for new plants, including hybrid and genetically modified (GM) varieties; unauthorized use of the plants or seeds could result in one to four years in prison and a fine of $130 to $1,300. The law had already been weakened by the Court of Constitutionality; acting on an Aug. 25 legal challenge from the Guatemalan Union, Indigenous and Campesino Movement (MSICG), the court suspended the law’s Articles 46 and 55. The law was originally passed to comply with an intellectual property requirement in the 2004 Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), and it was unclear whether Guatemala might now be excluded from the US-promoted trade bloc. Opponents labeled the legislation the “Monsanto Law,” after the Missouri-based multinational Monsanto Company, the world’s leading producer of GM seeds. Activists charged that the law opened the way to the introduction of GM plants, which might contaminate local crop varieties and disrupt traditional indigenous farming. Campesinos also felt they could lose their livelihoods due to competition from large-scale farmers who can afford higher-yielding seeds from multinationals.

World Bank And IMF Deals Open Ukraine To GMOs

August 30, 2014 Joyce Nelson, www.globalresearch.ca Educate! GMO, IMF, Monsanto, Ukraine, Wikileaks

Finally, a little-known aspect of the crisis in Ukraine is receiving some international attention. On July 28, the California-based Oakland Institute released a report revealing that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under terms of their $17 billion loan to Ukraine, would open that country to genetically-modified (GM) crops and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. The report is entitled “Walking on the West Side: the World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict.” [1] In late 2013, the then president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected a European Union association agreement tied to the $17 billion IMF loan, whose terms are only now being revealed. Instead, Yanukovych chose a Russian aid package worth $15 billion plus a discount on Russian natural gas. His decision was a major factor in the ensuing deadly protests that led to his ouster from office in February 2014 and the ongoing crisis. According to the Oakland Institute, “Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: it indicates, among other things, that both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies. There is no doubt that this provision meets the expectations of the agribusiness industry. As observed by Michael Cox, research director at the investment bank Piper Jaffray, ‘Ukraine and, to a wider extent, Eastern Europe, are among the most promising growth markets for farm-equipment giant Deere, as well as seed producers Monsanto and DuPont’.” [2]

GMO, Pesticide Makers Down And Dirty

August 15, 2014 Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD, www.popularresistance.org Educate! GMOs, health, Monsanto

The original foundation of agricultural biotechnology was to advance sales of pesticides by engineering crops to become immune to toxic spraying. While weeds and insect pests would be eradicated, targeted crop would be spared, thereby allowing farmers to spray massive amounts of chemicals on soy, corn, cotton, sugar beets and other agricultural foods without injury. This was the assumption that led to the agro-genetic revolution. Only during the past decade with more and more GM products in our diets, and more and more farm acreage being sprayed with glyphosate and other toxic pesticides and herbicides, are the long term health risks to animals, humans and the environment being more fully recognized within the scientific community. Annual runoffs of pesticides into rivers, streams and reservoirs have complicated the extent to which humans are being exposed to life threatening chemicals on a daily basis.

Monsanto Begins Paying $93 Million In WV Class Action Settlement

July 27, 2014 Staff, www.statejournal.com Organize! Environment, Monsanto

People who lived, worked or attended school in areas impacted by dioxins produced at Monsanto's Nitro plant can register their interest in obtaining medical monitoring or property clean up if they haven't already done so. The Monsanto class action settlement took effect May 7. Beginning Tuesday, July 8, the court-appointed administrator of the Nitro Class Action Settlement, Thomas V. Flaherty, will have an office in Nitro through Oct. 31 to help individuals who qualify obtain benefits for exposure to the dioxins, a chemical by-product of the weed killers produced at the Nitro plant. Dioxins have been linked to cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities as well as other serious health concerns. To avoid going to trial, Monsanto agreed in 2012 to spend up to $84 million on a 30-year medical monitoring program -- $21 million for the initial testing, with another $63 million available if dioxin levels warrant. They also agreed to spend another $9 million on property clean up.

Earthaleujia, Rev. Billy Given Message For Monsanto

July 16, 2014 Billy Talen, www.youtube.com Resist! Bees, Environment, Fundraising, Monsanto, Religion

Will you make a donation to help Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir go to Monsanto Headquarters in Saint Louis? Our hot show will be so dramatic that people will shout out, "How will the bees get back to their hive?" and "And how will I survive?" http://igg.me/at/revbilly-vs-monsanto... Freakstorm is directed by Laura Newman. http://irREVERENTfilms.com Music by Richard Padron. https://soundcloud.com/richard-padron Reverend Billy Talen is the Earthalujah! preacher, an author, artist and father. He has been jailed more than 50 times for his dramatic advocacy for the Earth, justice and democracy. His work has been featured in the New Yorker, Guardian, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Al Jazeera America, MSNBC, Fox, and many other international media outlets.

Fatal Kidney Disease Linked To Monsanto’s Round-Up

July 11, 2014 Jeff Ritterman, www.truth-out.org Educate! health, Monsanto, pollution

Monsanto's herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India. For years, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of a chronic kidney disease epidemic that has hit Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The disease occurs in poor peasant farmers who do hard physical work in hot climes. In each instance, the farmers have been exposed to herbicides and to heavy metals. The disease is known as CKDu, for Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology. The "u" differentiates this illness from other chronic kidney diseases where the cause is known. Very few Western medical practitioners are even aware of CKDu, despite the terrible toll it has taken on poor farmers from El Salvador to South Asia. Dr. Catharina Wesseling, the regional director for the Program on Work and Health (SALTRA) in Central America, which pioneered the initial studies of the region's unsolved outbreak, put it this way, "Nephrologists and public health professionals from wealthy countries are mostly either unfamiliar with the problem or skeptical whether it even exists."

Salvadoran Farmers Successfully Oppose Monsanto Seeds

July 10, 2014 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org Resist! El Salvador, Food and Agriculture, Monsanto, Policy

Farmers across El Salvador united to block a stipulation in a US aid package to their country that would have indirectly required the purchase of Monsanto genetically modified (GM) seeds. Thousands of farmers, like 45-year-old farmer Juan Joaquin Luna Vides, prefer to source their seeds locally, and not to use Monsanto's GM seeds. "Transnational companies have been known to provide expired seeds that they weren’t able to distribute elsewhere," said Vides, who heads the Diversified Production program at the Mangrove Association, a community development organization that works in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador. "We would like the US embassy and the misinformed media outlets [that are pressuring the Salvadoran government to change their procurement procedure] to know more about the reality of national producers and recognize the food sovereignty of the country," he added. During the last two months, the US government has been attempting to pressure the government of El Salvador to sign the second Millennium Challenge Compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US foreign aid agency created during the presidency of George W. Bush.

Hillary Clinton Goes To Bat For GMOs

July 4, 2014 Max Ocean, www.commondreams.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMO, Hillary Clinton, Monsanto

Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world's largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidintial candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates. While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term "'genetically modified' sounds Frankensteinish," and thus turns people off to GMOs. "Drought resistant sounds really like something you'd want," she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.” "If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health." —Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association Clinton's certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods. U.S. campaigners rejecting the industry's push for genetically-modified crops have been pushing hard to get states to pass labeling laws.

DC: Free Test For Monsanto Herbicide, March With Moms July 4th

July 1, 2014 Organic Consumers Association, www.salsalabs.com Resist! GMO, health, Monsanto, Protest, Washington DC

Zen Honeycutt and Moms Across America are back in D.C. to follow up on their historic meeting with the decision-makers at the Environmental Protection Agency who have the power to Recall Roundup. The group is offering free glyphosate (the key ingredient in Roundup) testing on Wednesday, July 2, and leading a contingent of anti-GMO activists on July 4, in a Fourth of July parade. July 2: Glyphosate Testing Monsanto’s Roundup has been linked to the explosion of illnesses plaguing this generation, including infertility and birth defects, allergies and gastrointestinal problems, obesity and diet-related diseases, Alzheimers and Parkinsons, asthma, auto-immune problems, autism-spectrum disorder, liver disease and cancer. Yet despite the fact that Roundup is the most widely used herbicide in the world, until recently, it’s been impossible to test you or your family for the presence of glyphosate—making it impossible to know if exposure to glyphosate might be behind illnesses you or your family are experiencing. But that changed in April, when Moms Across America released results of a preliminary round of tests that found glyphosate in breast milk, urine and water.

Criminalizing Dissent In India

June 22, 2014 Collin Todhunter, www.4thmedia.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, GMO, India, Monsanto

A recent Intelligence Bureau (IB) leaked report, ‘Impact of NGOs on Development’, has a special section on GMOs and is clearly supportive of the introduction of GM crops into Indian agriculture. The IB said foreign NGOs and their Indian arms were serving as tools to advance Western foreign policy interests in various areas, of which GMOs comprise one aspect. In response to the report, Aruna Rodrigues, Vandana Shiva and Kavitha Kuruganti, who were all mentioned in the report, released a statement that turned the tables on the IB by saying that it is conspiring with global corporate interests to haemorrhage India’s agricultural economy (12). The report quotes Dr Ronald Herring of Cornell University, who is a known promoter of genetically-modified organisms and Monsanto’s monopoly. Speaking to The Statesman newspaper in India, Aruna Rodrigues said: “Here is a real foreign hand that informs the IB report. Cornell University, where Dr Herring works, was one of the main forces, along with USAID and Monsanto, behind the making of Bt brinjal in India.”

Thoughts On Avoiding GMO Contamination

June 1, 2014 Diane Desenberg, www.groundbreakingroots.com Create! Food and Agriculture, GMO, Monsanto

As more and more crops are targeted for GMO adaptation and then commercialized, the decision to not grow a crop represents a loss. It is a loss of choice, leaving fewer and fewer crops from which to choose. In 2013, GMO-soy comprised 93% of the soy U.S. crop. Deciding to grow non-GMO soy in a soybean growing area would be a lost cause. A North Dakota farmer quoted in the Food and Water Watch survey, states The loss of crop options is not a direct cost, but a real one. We cannot, for example, grow organic canola as we are surrounded by hundreds of acres of GM canola - pollinated by insects - no buffer is big enough to contain cross pollination. GMO-wheat has not yet been commercialized, but when it is, another major crop might be off-limits to organic farmers.

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Celebrating Our First Year

May 31, 2014 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Economic Democracy, Monsanto, Walmart, Wars and Militarism

Tomorrow, June 1st, is the 1st anniversary of Popular Resistance. The goal of Popular Resistance is to help grow a mass movement for social, economic and environmental justice. We do this by covering the wide range of both protest movements and those working to create alternative systems in the US and around the world; connecting issues (or sub-movements) so we become a 'movement of movements'; and providing tools and information for everyone who seeks to participate in this movement. We are all in this together. We want to thank you for your participation in Popular Resistance. Please help us celebrate by growing the movement – share Popular Resistance with your friends and family. Consider using the articles for discussion groups. Use the tools and information on the “Organize” “Strategize” “Resist” and “Create” pages. And use Popular Resistance to share your work, tools and events by emailing info@popularresistance.org.

Moms To EPA: End Monsanto’s Poisoning Of America

May 29, 2014 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Resist! Activism, Moms, Monsanto

It's time for Monsanto's Roundup to stop poisoning our food. That was the message brought to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday by a group of concerned mothers who say that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the widespread herbicide made by the chemical and biotechnology giant, is putting public health in jeopardy. The group of 11, which included scientists, a lawyer and health worker, urged the agency to look at the results of a recent pilot study commissioned by their group, Moms Across America, and Sustainable Pulse. Their study found glyphosate present in human breast milk, indicating — contrary to industry claims — that the herbicide may build up or "bioaccumulate" in women's bodies. The results of that study were "considerable and shocking," Zen Honeycutt, Founder and Director of Moms Across America, told Common Dreams. Honeycutt pointed to a previous study which looked at Roundup's negative effects on gut bacteria and pointed to possible links between those effects and a number of diseases. She said that in her group's breast milk study, the sample with the highest levels of Roundup detected had levels that were higher than was shown to destroy gut bacteria in the earlier study.

Worldwide March Against Monsanto

May 24, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Monsanto

March Against Monsanto had another big, successful global protest. This compilation by RT provides glimpses of protesters against the world's most hated corporation from around the world. Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director at Organic Consumers Association, told RT the claim we need genetically modified food to feed the world “is completely false.” “We actually have enough grassland in the United States to pasture and raise 100 percent grass-fed beef. So no, the feed the world argument is entirely accurate in the slightest,” she said. March Against Monsanto Founder Tami Canal has told The Anti-Media that Saturday’s event will mark the largest event ever carried out by the movement. “The 3rd global March Against Monsanto (MAM) is expected to be the biggest one yet. With 43 countries on 6 continents, MAM has coordinated 366 official events, with countless others not officially registered.” Canal notes how what once started as a California ballot measure requiring the labeling of genetically modified food “has turned into a global movement to educate against all fallacies of Monsanto." “From Agent Orange to Monsanto’s pending patents directly affiliated with weather modification to the gross government corruption, MAM has evolved to expose all the insidious tentacles that Monsanto possesses.”

May 24: Global March Against Monsanto

May 23, 2014 Staff, www.march-against-monsanto.com Resist! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Monsanto

On May 24, millions of activists from around the world will once again March Against Monsanto, calling for the permanent boycott of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and other harmful agro-chemicals. Currently, marches will occur on six continents, in 52 countries,with events in over 400 cities. In the US, solidarity marches are slated to occur in 47 states. A comprehensive list of marches can be accessed at www.march-against-monsanto.com. Tami Monroe Canal, founder of March Against Monsanto (MAM), was inspired to start the movement to protect her two daughters. “Monsanto’s predatory business and corporate agricultural practices threatens their generation’s health, fertility and longevity. MAM supports a sustainable food production system. We must act now to stop GMOs and harmful pesticides.”

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