Saturday, March 30, 2013

EPA SUED BY BEEKEPERS - CONSUMER GROUPS OVER APPROVALS ON NEONICOTINOIDS: SYSTEMIC INSECTICIDES

Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms

Jim Wilson/The New York Times
A Disastrous Year for Bees: For America’s beekeepers, who have struggled for nearly a decade with a mysterious malady called colony collapse disorder that kills honeybees en masse, the last year was particularly bad.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Beekeepers with Big Sky Honey worked with hives used to pollinate almond groves in Bakersfield, Calif.

A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor.
The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.
“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.”
In a show of concern, the Environmental Protection Agency recently sent its acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of California, for discussions.
In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the past year has brought far greater losses.
The federal Agriculture Department is to issue its own assessment in May. But in an interview, the research leader at its Beltsville, Md., bee research laboratory, Jeff Pettis, said he was confident that the death rate would be “much higher than it’s ever been.”
Following a now-familiar pattern, bee deaths rose swiftly last autumn and dwindled as operators moved colonies to faraway farms for the pollination season. Beekeepers say the latest string of deaths has dealt them a heavy blow.
Bret Adee, who is an owner, with his father and brother, of Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the nation’s largest beekeeper, described mounting losses.
“We lost 42 percent over the winter. But by the time we came around to pollinate almonds, it was a 55 percent loss,” he said in an interview here this week.
“They looked beautiful in October,” Mr. Adee said, “and in December, they started falling apart, when it got cold.”
Mr. Dahle said he had planned to bring 13,000 beehives from Montana — 31 tractor-trailers full — to work the California almond groves. But by the start of pollination last month, only 3,000 healthy hives remained.
Annual bee losses of 5 percent to 10 percent once were the norm for beekeepers. But after colony collapse disorder surfaced around 2005, the losses approached one-third of all bees, despite beekeepers’ best efforts to ensure their health.
Nor is the impact limited to beekeepers. The Agriculture Department says a quarter of the American diet, from apples to cherries to watermelons to onions, depends on pollination by honeybees. Fewer bees means smaller harvests and higher food prices.
Almonds are a bellwether. Eighty percent of the nation’s almonds grow here, and 80 percent of those are exported, a multibillion-dollar crop crucial to California agriculture. Pollinating up to 800,000 acres, with at least two hives per acre, takes as many as two-thirds of all commercial hives.
This past winter’s die-off sent growers scrambling for enough hives to guarantee a harvest. Chris Moore, a beekeeper in Kountze, Tex., said he had planned to skip the groves after sickness killed 40 percent of his bees and left survivors weakened.
“But California was short, and I got a call in the middle of February that they were desperate for just about anything,” he said. So he sent two truckloads of hives that he normally would not have put to work.
Bee shortages pushed the cost to farmers of renting bees to $200 per hive at times, 20 percent above normal. That, too, may translate into higher prices for food.
Precisely why last year’s deaths were so great is unclear. Some blame drought in the Midwest, though Mr. Dahle lost nearly 80 percent of his bees despite excellent summer conditions. Others cite bee mites that have become increasingly resistant to pesticides. Still others blame viruses.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times Bees on a honeycomb pulled from a hive at Big Sky Honey.


Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Bill Dahle, the owner, described a startling loss of honeybees last year.

But many beekeepers suspect the biggest culprit is the growing soup of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are used to control pests.
While each substance has been certified, there has been less study of their combined effects. Nor, many critics say, have scientists sufficiently studied the impact of neonicotinoids, the nicotine-derived pesticide that European regulators implicate in bee deaths.
The explosive growth of neonicotinoids since 2005 has roughly tracked rising bee deaths.
Neonics, as farmers call them, are applied in smaller doses than older pesticides. They are systemic pesticides, often embedded in seeds so that the plant itself carries the chemical that kills insects that feed on it.
Older pesticides could kill bees and other beneficial insects. But while they quickly degraded — often in a matter of days — neonicotinoids persist for weeks and even months. Beekeepers worry that bees carry a summer’s worth of contaminated pollen to hives, where ensuing generations dine on a steady dose of pesticide that, eaten once or twice, might not be dangerous.
“Soybean fields or canola fields or sunflower fields, they all have this systemic insecticide,” Mr. Adee said. “If you have one shot of whiskey on Thanksgiving and one on the Fourth of July, it’s not going to make any difference. But if you have whiskey every night, 365 days a year, your liver’s gone. It’s the same thing.”
Research to date on neonicotinoids “supports the notion that the products are safe and are not contributing in any measurable way to pollinator health concerns,” the president of CropLife America, Jay Vroom, said Wednesday. The group represents more than 90 pesticide producers.
He said the group nevertheless supported further research. “We stand with science and will let science take the regulation of our products in whatever direction science will guide it,” Mr. Vroom said.
A coalition of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the E.P.A. last week, saying it exceeded its authority by conditionally approving some neonicotinoids. The agency has begun an accelerated review of their impact on bees and other wildlife.
The European Union has proposed to ban their use on crops frequented by bees. Some researchers have concluded that neonicotinoids caused extensive die-offs in Germany and France.
Neonicotinoids are hardly the beekeepers’ only concern. Herbicide use has grown as farmers have adopted crop varieties, from corn to sunflowers, that are genetically modified to survive spraying with weedkillers. Experts say some fungicides have been laced with regulators that keep insects from maturing, a problem some beekeepers have reported.
Eric Mussen, an apiculturist at the University of California, Davis, said analysts had documented about 150 chemical residues in pollen and wax gathered from beehives.
“Where do you start?” Dr. Mussen said. “When you have all these chemicals at a sublethal level, how do they react with each other? What are the consequences?”
Experts say nobody knows. But Mr. Adee, who said he had long scorned environmentalists’ hand-wringing about such issues, said he was starting to wonder whether they had a point.
Of the “environmentalist” label, Mr. Adee said: “I would have been insulted if you had called me that a few years ago. But what you would have called extreme — a light comes on, and you think, ‘These guys really have something. Maybe they were just ahead of the bell curve.’”

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

FRANKENSUICIDE - FRANKENPATENTS - FRANKENSEEDS

Monsanto and the Seeds of Suicide

Vijaya, 22, and her husband Avalu, 28, cultivated cotton Bt on their 5 acres of land. Due to unbearable debts and recent bad harvests, Avalu committed suicide by swallowing pesticide in 2005. Vijaya remains alone with her two daughters, Venalla, 5, and Navyer, 2. In order to provide for her family, she works in the fields where she earns 100 rupees a day in paddy fields (rice) or 25 rupees in cotton fields. She owes the bank 1 lackh rupees. She wants to keep her land for her daughters’ dowries. In the countryside, a widow with two children cannot remarry because the men refuse to support the children from a previous marriage. (Photo: Viviane Dalles*)
“Monsanto is an agricultural company. We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more.”
“Producing more, Conserving more, Improving farmers lives.”
These are the promises Monsanto India’s website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India from the company’s growing control over cotton seed supply — 95 per cent of India’s cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto.
Control over seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers.
Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers’ suicides in India to Monsanto vs Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.
Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.
Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India.
Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into a plant cell is not “creating” or “inventing” a plant. These are seeds of deception — the deception that Monsanto is the creator of seeds and life; the deception that while Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt, it pretends to be working for farmers’ welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world. GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.
The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed by the World Bank, requiring the Government of India to deregulate the seed sector. Five things changed with Monsanto’s entry: First, Indian companies were locked into joint-ventures and licensing arrangements, and concentration over the seed sector increased. Second, seed which had been the farmers’ common resource became the “intellectual property” of Monsanto, for which it started collecting royalties, thus raising the costs of seed. Third, open pollinated cotton seeds were displaced by hybrids, including GMO hybrids. A renewable resource became a non-renewable, patented commodity. Fourth, cotton which had earlier been grown as a mixture with food crops now had to be grown as a monoculture, with higher vulnerability to pests, disease, drought and crop failure. Fifth, Monsanto started to subvert India’s regulatory processes and, in fact, started to use public resources to push its non-renewable hybrids and GMOs through so-called public-private partnerships (PPP).
In 1995, Monsanto introduced its Bt technology in India through a joint-venture with the Indian company Mahyco. In 1997-98, Monsanto started open field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally and announced that it would be selling the seeds commercially the following year. India has rules for regulating GMOs since 1989, under the Environment Protection Act. It is mandatory to get approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee under the ministry of environment for GMO trials. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology sued Monsanto in the Supreme Court of India and Monsanto could not start the commercial sales of its Bt cotton seeds until 2002.
And, after the damning report of India’s parliamentary committee on Bt crops in August 2012, the panel of technical experts appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a 10-year moratorium on field trials of all GM food and termination of all ongoing trials of transgenic crops.
But it had changed Indian agriculture already.
Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India. This systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt.
An internal advisory by the agricultural ministry of India in January 2012 had this to say to the cotton-growing states in India — “Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.”
The highest acreage of Bt cotton is in Maharashtra and this is also where the highest farmer suicides are. Suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced — Monsanto’s royalty extraction, and the high costs of seed and chemicals have created a debt trap. According to Government of India data, nearly 75 per cent rural debt is due to purchase inputs. As Monsanto’s profits grow, farmers’ debt grows. It is in this systemic sense that Monsanto’s seeds are seeds of suicide. The ultimate seeds of suicide is Monsanto’s patented technology to create sterile seeds. (Called “Terminator technology” by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow — crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off.) The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed.
Monsanto’s talk of “technology” tries to hide its real objectives of ownership and control over seed where genetic engineering is just a means to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights.
A Monsanto representative admitted that they were “the patient’s diagnostician, and physician all in one” in writing the patents on life-forms, from micro-organisms to plants, in the TRIPS’ agreement of WTO. Stopping farmers from saving seeds and exercising their seed sovereignty was the main objective. Monsanto is now extending its patents to conventionally bred seed, as in the case of broccoli and capsicum, or the low gluten wheat it had pirated from India which we challenged as a biopiracy case in the European Patent office.
That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto’s Bt cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic. No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.
*In 2006, photographer Vivian Dalles created this photo essay of Indian cotton farmers who had begun planting Monsanta's genetically modified hybrid seeds.
Vandana Shiva
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.
Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/27-4

OBAMA SIGNS MONSANTO DEATH CROPS RIDER - NOW WHAT?

imagesThe Latest on the GMO Rider

March 26, 2013
Where do we go from here?

The Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government passed both the Senate and the House last week—and despite all our mutual efforts, it still contained the dangerous GMO rider we’ve been telling you about. The Senate, and in particular, the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership, let us down, despite earlier signals they would stand up to Monsanto on this one. Senate Democrats were unwilling to remove the biotech rider, despite the efforts of hundreds of organizations and businesses and tens of thousands of phone calls and Action Alert messages sent.

As you’ll recall, the newly passed rider will strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of illegal, potentially hazardous genetically engineered crops while USDA is performing an environmental impact statement. It will not only affect future judicial orders—it will also invalidate several recent orders that found the approval of GMO crops were unlawful, and will allow the planting of those GMO crops even while the USDA assesses environmental hazards.

Since the USDA is totally behind GMO crops, removing court restraints really means that there are no controls on GMO planting at all. No safety reviews (USDA can’t even do them, only FDA, which refuses), and not even any real environmental assessments. This is one of the most blatant examples of money talking in politics that we have seen, and we have seen plenty of them in recent years.

There is also a real question whether the rider is constitutional—how can Congress contravene judicial actions? That would seem to contradict the separation of powers doctrine. We will be reviewing this and other questions with legal counsel.

Unfortunately, the Democrats were the ones who pushed this rider and allowed it to go through unhindered. What did they receive in return? This is the big unanswered question, as no one is willing to “take credit” for the rider. We spoke to the office of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and asked our lobbyists to see what they could find out, but we still did not get any answers. Barbara Mikulski, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman, is not a big recipient of biotech funds, and she’s usually our ally on this issue—so it is even stranger that the rider’s language would arise out of her committee. Procedurally, it is irregular for a rider to become law that was not passed through the committee of jurisdiction first—in this case, the Judiciary or Agriculture Committee. In fact, Congress held no hearings on the biotech rider, and many Democrats on the committee were initially unaware of its presence in the CR in the first place.

We do know that Monsanto and other biotech companies give a great deal of money to politicians. Opensecrets.org has not collated the information for 2013 as yet, but their figures reveal that contributions to both parties have increased dramatically in recent years. From 2011 to 2012, the agribusiness industry contributed $89,675,179 to political campaigns—65.9% to Republicans, 22.3% to Democrats—with Monsanto topping the list of contributors. The biggest recipients? In the Senate, it was Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) with $739,926 in agribusiness donations, and in the House, Frank Lucas (R-OK) with $720,590. However, neither of these individuals serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where the rider language was inserted.

Technically, this CR will be in effect only for six months—its purpose is to fund the government just through September 30—and the GMO provision will expire when the CR expires. In practice, however, this will happen only when Congress enacts a 2014 Appropriations Bill, and it’s not likely they’ll have one written, debated, and enacted by September 30, the end of the 2013 fiscal year. If they don’t have a new bill by then, they will simply change the date on the CR and extend it once again—and everything will remain as it is, including the GMO rider.

In other words, it’s extremely unlikely that the GMO rider will simply go away. Our only chance to end this provision is to make sure it doesn’t get included in the 2014 Appropriations Bill. This will require a huge and sustained grassroots effort—and a strong message to Congress to stop trying to sneak biotech riders by us. We as concerned citizens shouldn’t stand for it! ANH-USA will continue to work on lobbying, strategizing with various grassroots partners, and doing outreach. And we will, as always, keep you posted every step along the way.
Source:  http://www.anh-usa.org/the-latest-on-the-gmo-rider/

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

US SENATE GIVES GREEN LIGHT - MONSANTO IS ABOVE ALL LAWS

Article image
SENATE PASSES MONSANTO PROTECTION ACT GIVING MONSANTO POWER OVER US GOV'T
Anthony Gucciardi

Natural Society / News Report   

Published: Sunday 24 March 2013  It is a lobbyist created recurring nuisance that has been squashed in previous legislation thanks to outcry from not only grassroots but major organizations.
In the typical slippery nature of Monsanto’s legislation-based actions, the biotech giant is now virtually guaranteed the ability to recklessly plant experimental GM crops without having to worry about the United States government and its subsequent courts. The Monsanto Protection Act buried deep within the budget resolution has passed the Senate, and now nothing short of a presidential veto will put an end to the ruling.
In case you’re not familiar, the Monsanto Protection Act is the name given to what’s known as a legislative rider that was inserted into the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill. Using the deceptive title of Farmer Assurance Provision, Sec. 735 of this bill actually grants Monsanto the immunity from federal courts pending the review of any GM crop that is thought to be dangerous. Under the section, courts would be helpless to stop Monsanto from continuing to plant GM crops that are thought even by the US government to be a danger to health or the environment.
Senate Passes Monsanto Protection Act Despite Outcry


It is a lobbyist-created recurring nuisance that has been squashed in previous legislation thanks to outcry from not only grassroots but major organizations. Last time we saw The Center for Food Safety, the National Family Farm Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists all come out against the Monsanto Protection Act from the 2012 Farm Bill. This time, there was a swift resistance I thought might be enough, however sadly the Senate acted so quickly on this and almost entirely ignored the issue that it has now passed despite thousands of fans signing the old petition I linked to in my previous articles on the subject. The old petition by Food Democracy Now detailed the effects of the bill:
“If approved, the Monsanto Protection Act would force the USDA to allow continued planting of any GMO crop under court review, essentially giving backdoor approval for any new genetically engineered crops that could be potentially harmful to human health or the environment.”
That said, now a new petition exists telling Obama to veto the bill. The reality is that the bill is actually seen as a positive one by most politicians, which is where Monsanto lobbyists were so deceptive and slippery as to throw in their rider (the actual Monsanto Protection Act into the bill). This makes it very unappealing to veto the bill, but also we must remember that Obama actually promised to immediately label GMOs back in 2007 when running for President.
In case you don’t believe me, here’s the video: 
 Ushering In a New Era of Activism
The simple fact is that this bill will likely not be vetoed by Obama, and instead Monsanto will get what they wanted. That said, this ushers in an entirely new era of activism. Monsanto has decided to push the envelope in a way that is unprecedented, fighting the US federal courts. I expected to see almost immediate legal action taken that will certainly hit the headlines, leading to even more people to become aware of what’s really going on with this company and therefore their dinner.
Sometimes in order to truly have an intellectual revolution on a subject, the people need to see exactly what they are facing. With the truly blatant and downright arrogant Monsanto Protection Act, it’s now clearer than ever.
Source:  http://www.nationofchange.org/senate-passes-monsanto-protection-act-granting-monsanto-power-over-us-govt-1364176360

CONSUMERS KEEP GMO LABELING PRESSURE ON

Consumers, demand labels on genetically altered food
Published 4:37 pm, Monday, March 25, 2013 The following is from an editorial in the San Jose Mercury News:

A California ballot measure last fall to require labeling of genetically engineered foods was poorly drafted and, fortunately, failed at the polls. But we hoped the market would force transparency in the sale of genetically altered foods, and sure enough, it's beginning: This week, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and some other retailers announced they would not sell genetically engineered seafood in their stores.
AquaBounty Technology of Massachusetts won provisional approval by the Food and Drug Administration in December for its AquaAdvantage salmon. The fish carries a gene that makes it grow twice as fast as Atlantic salmon. The FDA will issue its final report on what would be the first genetically engineered fish sold in U.S. stores after the 60-day public comment window closes April 26. The FDA has not indicated that it would require the fish to be labeled.
But Whole Foods, which has more than 300 stores, announced Wednesday that it will require labels for all food containing genetically modified ingredients beginning 2018. So while Proposition 37 failed, the movement toward labeling is under way.
The National Academy of Sciences, World Health Organization and American Medical Association agree that no one has proved any risk from modified foods. But the products are relatively new, and the long-term effects of eating them haven't been tested.
Genetically engineered food is labeled in Europe and other parts of the world. It should be labeled in the United States. And it will, if consumers demand it.
Clearly, Whole Foods is responding to consumer preferences. Other stores will need to demand labeling or else give up customers to stores that do.

USDA MERRIGAN ABRUPTLY DEPARTS - WHY?

Image (1) KMerrigan.jpg for post 32387

Sustainable food loses its biggest champion in Washington, D.C.

The Obama administration is losing its most powerful supporter of local and organic foods. Kathleen Merrigan, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, announced last week that she would be leaving her post as USDA’s deputy secretary. Sustainable agriculture groups responded with dismay and disappointment to what the Columbus Dispatch described as her “abrupt” departure. The food industry publication The Packer speculated that this could spell “the end of local food at USDA.”
Merrigan is best known for her local foods initiative called Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, which brought all of the agency’s efforts to improve regional and local food systems under one conceptual roof. It was a modest program in terms of budget — its funding was measured in mere millions while agribusiness reaped tens of billions in subsidies — but it was the first effort of its kind at an agency long known for its support of large commodity growers. (And small as it was, it was revolutionary enough to draw the ire of Republicans.)
Merrigan is also credited with preserving strong standards for the Organic label, championing a national farm-to-school program, funding hoop houses to allow farmers to grow later into the season, and acting as a key player in the effort to improve the foods sold in school vending machines. Jerry Hagstrom has a good wrap-up in National Journal.
But it wasn’t just about her favored policies. Merrigan also provided political cover to her boss, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. She was a counterweight to the administration’s more industry-friendly moves, especially regarding support for biotech seeds. Decisions like Vilsack’s fast-tracking of approval of so-called Agent Orange corn and USDA’s willingness to ignore a court order and allow farmers to keep growing GMO sugar beets infuriated sustainable-agriculture types. But Merrigan’s presence near the top of USDA’s chain of command convinced them that the agency wasn’t totally in the tank to Big Ag.
Merrigan is the latest of a long line of administration officials to depart as Obama begins his second term, and she’s said that the change has been in the works for some time. But given the abruptness of her departure and the brevity of her resignation announcement, some observers, such as Tom Philpott at Mother Jones, are concerned that she’s being forced out by those who oppose her efforts to reorient the USDA, in however small a way, toward more support for local and regional food. Hagstrom even speculates that Vilsack himself may have engineered her departure because “he was jealous of her public profile.”
Merrigan herself made clear that her departure was not “for personal reasons.” She made a strong statement to USDA staff that she disagrees with those who say that women can’t hold top positions in government, a sensitive topic in the Obama administration.
Regardless of Merrigan’s reasons for leaving, there’s no question that Vilsack supports the policies she championed and a more sustainable agriculture in general. And Merrigan insists that she has institutionalized an interest in local and organic farming within USDA. But hers will be big shoes to fill. Merrigan was not just the government’s highest-ranking sustainable-agriculture advocate, but also perhaps the only such person with the bureaucratic expertise to run the day-to-day operations of the enormous $150 billion-a-year, 100,000-employee agency.
Before joining the USDA, Merrigan was a top aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) who was then chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. There, she helped write the original law that created the USDA Organic program. A few years later, she was brought in by President Bill Clinton to run the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service just as it was beginning to implement the organic law — and she’s credited with saving it from regulatory irrelevance.
There are certainly many people at the state level and even within USDA who could serve in her current position, but there is no one else out there who has the breadth of expertise and experience in sustainable ag and in USDA administrative wonkery wrapped up in one hard-nosed, efficient package. The closest such person I can think of currently at USDA is Miles McEvoy, who runs the National Organic Program, but it’s difficult to imagine that he’s seriously in the running to replace Merrigan.
One is left hoping that Merrigan is right — that there’s enough institutional momentum behind her work that it continues in her absence. But institutions like USDA are far more often driven by inertia from the status quo — and at the USDA, the status quo ain’t exactly local and organically grown. Kathleen Merrigan will be sorely missed.
Tom Laskawy is a founder and executive director of the Food & Environment Reporting Network and a contributing writer at Grist covering food and agricultural policy. His writing has also appeared in The American Prospect, Slate, The New York Times, and The New Republic.
SOURCE:  http://grist.org/food/sustainable-food-loses-its-biggest-champion-in-washington-d-c/

GMO LABELING - JUST ONE STATE IS ALL IT WILL TAKE


The other thing Monsanto doesn’t want you to know.

We all know that Monsanto doesn’t want you to know which foods contain genetically modified ingredients (almost 80 percent of all processed foods), and which don’t.
We also know that Monsanto doesn’t want us to know how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) affect our health, which is why the company refuses to allow independent testing of its GMOs (under pretense of protecting its patented technologies).
And clearly, Monsanto doesn’t want you to know that labeling GMOs won’t increase food costs (it hasn’t in all the other countries where GMO labeling is mandatory by law). Or that it won’t provoke an avalanche of lawsuits against food retailers (that wouldn’t be the case under any of the proposed state GMO labeling laws).
But here’s something else Monsanto doesn’t want you to know: that if we win even one state labeling law, we will deal a near-fatal blow to the biotech industry’s multi-billion dollar foundation of lies, greed and destruction.
In November, voters in Washington State will decide on I-522, a citizens’ ballot initiative to label GMOs. The OCA has pledged $500,000 to the I-522 campaign. If we raise half of that - $250,000 – by April 1, a generous donor will match those funds so we can fulfill our pledge.
So far, we’ve raised about $127,000. That means we have to raise $123,000 between now and Monday of next week. Can you help us reach our goal by April 1 with a donation today? You can donate online with a credit card or Paypal. Or you can mail a check. Or phone in your donation.
You’ve been down this road with us before. You fought with us, you raised money with us, to pass a similar initiative, Proposition 37, in California last year. When we lost by a mere 3 percentage points (48.5% to 51.5%), you mourned the loss with us. But you also celebrated the fact that we’d mobilized more than 6 million voters in California, that we’d made “GMO” a household name, and that we’d turned the issue of GMOs in our food into a mainstream public health issue.
A lot has happened since Nov. 7, 2012. Thanks to consumers like you who hammered the food companies that poured millions into defeating Prop 37, those companies have split from the biotech industry and are likely to sit out the battle over I-522. Thanks to your overwhelming support for Prop 37, more than 30 other states are working together on model language for statewide GMO labeling laws. And thanks to your criticism of Whole Foods for its failure to lend any meaningful support to Prop 37, the nation’s largest organic food retailer recently announced that it will voluntarily label GMOs in its stores in the U.S. and Canada.
But we still need a win. We still need a state labeling law. And I-522 is our next best opportunity.
Just as with California, a GMO labeling law in Washington State will force food companies to label nationally. And while a federal labeling law would likely be written by lobbyists to favor Big Food and Big Biotech, I-522 has been written with consumers’ best interests as top priority.
The money you contributed to Prop 37 created huge forward momentum for the GMO labeling movement. It had an impact that still reverberates today. If we stop fighting now, we throw away our investment. Your investment.
It’s not often that someone comes along and offers a $250,000 matching gift. Please help us take advantage of this generous gift and, more importantly, show Monsanto and the biotech industry that we are strong. We are determined. We will not give up this fight.
Between today and April 1, your donation will be worth twice as much, as long as we reach our goal of $250,000. Every cent we raise will go directly to support the I-522 campaign. Please help us keep this fight alive with your donation today.
You are the GMO labeling movement. And we are grateful for your passion, your energy, your commitment and your generosity.
In solidarity,

Ronnie Cummins
National Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund

P.S. Prop 37 would never have had the impact it had, without your support. Our $1.5 million donation to the campaign came from individual donations, from people like you. If you still believe in this fight, please donate today. Help us show Monsanto that we intend to win the GMO labeling battle!
Paid for by the Organic Consumers Fund Committee to Label GMOs in Washington State.

US GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: MONSANTO ABOVE PLANET-WIDE LAW

monsantoprotectionactcorporationsMonsanto Protection Act Proves Corporations More Powerful Than US Government


by
March 20th, 2013

We’ve seen similar scenarios in the past, events in which the massive financial power of multi-national corporations is able to buy out legislators who were elected to ‘represent’ voters. But now, Monsanto has set the bar even higher. Instead of just getting a few kickbacks or avoiding USDA regulation, Monsanto lobbyists have gone as far as to generate legislative inclusions into a new bill that puts Monsanto above the federal government.
It’s called the Monsanto Protection Act among activists and concerned citizens who have been following the developments on the issue, and it consists of a legislative ‘rider’ inside (Farmer Assurance Provision, Sec. 735) a majority-wise unrelated Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill. You may already be aware of what this rider consists of, but in case not you will likely be blown away by the tenacity of Monsanto lobbyist goons.
If this rider passes with the bill, which could be as early as this week, Monsanto would have complete immunity from federal courts when it comes to their ability to act against any new Monsanto GMO crops that are suspected to be endangering the public or the environment (or considered to be planted illegally by the USDA). We’re talking about courts that literally can do nothing to Monsanto if it’s found that their newest creation may be promoting cancer, for example. Whether it’s a GMO banana or an apple, Monsanto could continue planting the food abomination all it wants under court review.
Food Democracy Now has launched a petition on the subject, explaining:
“The Monsanto Protection Act would strip judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumer rights and the environment, while opening up the floodgates for the planting of new untested genetically engineered crops.”
What really enraged Monsanto was the incident back in 2010, when a federal judge actually revoked Monsanto’s approval to plant GMO sugar beets due to environmental concerns. This is exactly what Monsanto intends to stop, literally becoming more powerful than federal courts in their conquest to monopolize the entire food chain.
Monsanto Overcomes US Government
Monsanto has literally gotten away with murder ever since it was founded way back in 1901. Very few people actually realize the history of this company. Not many activists realize that this is the same company that was responsible, along with Dow Agrosciences, for creating Agent Orange. Created for the US military to be used during Vietnam as a ‘defoliant’ (really used for incognito chemical warfare operations which affected both allied and enemy troops), the concoction that was Agent Orange consisted of a medley of highly toxic ingredients including dioxin — a type of toxic substance considered to be one of the deadliest on the planet.
Agent Orange, from Monsanto, killed 400,000 people and led to 500,000 children born with troubling birth defects. And in addition to those stats 1 million were rendered disabled or at least suffer from health issues from Agent Orange exposure. This includes US soldiers.
So what happened to Monsanto after they designed a ‘defoliant’ that was actually a deadly chemical weapon that killed, maimed, and ruined lives of innocents and US soldiers? Monsanto issued a truly heart-felt statement that their Agent Orange wasn’t really that dangerous despite all of the evidence that is now accepted as fact:
“We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects.”
Oh, and they settled for what amounts to chump change in order to silence the dying veterans, paying 45% of the 180 million dollar payout in order to make the veterans drop the charges. Then, of course, they eventually went on to make genetically modified crops and take over 90 plus percent of the GM seed market. A market that they have actually cornered by patenting their seeds, which India calls ‘biopiracy’. Before that, they mass produced plastics that we now know are morphing the hormones of consumers.
But let’s also not forget that Monsanto has so many ties inside the US government that it has managed to slip into a very comfortable position. Former Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto, Michael Taylor ultimately became a major head the FDA. Before that, Taylor conveniently worked specifically on Monsanto’s “food and drug law” practices. Specifically in regards to Monsanto’s cloned rBGH. But remember, this was before Monsanto decided to go for a more ‘blatant’ route.

Now, instead of just operating in the shadows, Monsanto is pushing a much bolder move with the Monsanto Protection Act. It not only sets a troubling precedent for Monsanto, but also for other bloated multi-national corporations that want to obtain higher authority and immunity from US courts.
About Anthony Gucciardi:
1.thumbnail Monsanto Protection Act Proves Corporations More Powerful Than US Government Google Plus Profile Anthony is an accomplished investigative journalist whose articles have appeared on top news sites and have been read by millions worldwide. Anthony’s articles have been featured on top health & political websites such as Reuters, Yahoo News, MSNBC, and Bloomberg. Anthony is also a founding member of Natural Attitude, a leading developer of super high quality spagyric formulations.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-protection-act-corporations-power-us-government/#ixzz2OTDFlebB
Source:  http://www.collapsingintoconsciousness.com/monsanto-protection-act-proves-corporations-more-powerful-than-us-government/