GMOs: Ban Them or Label Them?

Sunday, March 9, 2014 by Common Dreams

by Ronnie Cummins

 

'With no real market for GMOs, EU farmers have refused to grow them. EU activists point out that if meat, eggs and dairy products derived from animals fed GMO grains had to be labeled, there would be no GMOs in Europe. Period.' (File)Since the controversial introduction in the mid-nineties of genetically engineered (GE) food and crops, and the subsequent fast-tracking of those crops by the federal government—with no independent safety-testing or labeling required—there has been a lively debate among activists, both inside and outside the U.S., about how to drive these unhealthy and environmentally destructive “Frankenfoods” off the market.

Some campaigners have called for an outright ban of GE crops. In fact, several dozen nations, thousands of local governments in the EU, and six counties in the U.S. (in California, Washington and Hawaii) have created GMO-free zones by passing bans.

Other activists argue that strict mandatory labeling laws, similar to those in the EU, are all we need in order to rid the world of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Activists in this camp point out that very few products in countries that have mandatory GMO labeling laws contain GMOs, because once companies are required to label GMO ingredients, they reformulate their products to be GMO-free, rather than risk rejection by consumers.

Who’s right?

A review of two decades of anti-GMO campaigning in North America and Europe suggests that mandatory labeling and bans, or GMO-free zones, should be seen as complementary, rather than contradictory. And recent news about increased contamination of non-GMO crops by the growing number of USDA-approved GMO crops suggests that if we don’t implement labeling laws and bans sooner rather than later, we may run out of time to preserve organic and non-GMO farmers and their fields.

Bans and Mandatory Labeling Laws: Lessons from the EU

In the EU in the late-1990s, in what was the largest agricultural market in the world, anti-GMO campaigners, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, at first tried to establish a sweeping production and import ban on all GMOs. They were unsuccessful, largely because politicians and bureaucrats argued that an outright ban of GMOs in the EU would violate World Trade Organization agreements and bring on serious economic retaliation from the U.S. government.

Leading consumer, environmental and farm groups pushing for a ban were successful, however, in forcing EU authorities to adopt significant GMO safety-testing regulations.  All GMOs, under EU law, are considered "novel foods" and are subject to extensive, case-by-case, science-based food evaluation by European regulatory officials. These regulations, much to the chagrin of Monsanto and the Gene Giants, have kept most GMOs, with the exception of animal feeds, out of the country.

EU regulations also permit member nations to establish GMO-free zones.  As of 2012 there are 169 regions and 4,713 municipalities that have declared themselves GMO-free zones in the EU. In addition to these GMO-free zones in the EU, at least 26 nations, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico, and Russia have banned GMOs entirely. Significant labeling and safety-testing procedures on GMOs have been put in place in approximately 60 countries.

Mandatory Labeling in the EU: The Crucial Blow to GMOs

Although EU grassroots forces failed to gain a continent-wide ban on the cultivation or import of GMOs, they were successful in pushing authorities to impose mandatory labeling of all genetically engineered foods, feeds and food ingredients in 1997. This, combined with strict pre-market safety-testing regulations, has marginalized or eliminated GMOs throughout the EU.

EU foods derived from animals raised on GMO feed, however—meat, eggs, and dairy products—do not have to be labeled in the EU. As a consequence, billions of dollars of GMO-tainted animal feeds, including corn, soybeans and canola, continue to be imported every year into the EU from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina. EU activists, in Germany and elsewhere, have now begun campaigning to eliminate this strategic loophole.

As the EU’s GMO food labeling law came into effect in 1997-98, activists switched gears, successfully pressuring many large supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Co-Op, Tesco, Waitrose  and Marks & Spencer, and food manufacturers, including Unilever and Nestlé, to pledge to remain GMO-free. Feeling the heat from grassroots campaigners and realizing that mandatory GMO labeling would be the “kiss of death” for their brand-name products and their reputations, every major EU supermarket, food manufacturing and restaurant chain, including U.S.-based multinationals such as General Mills, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Walmart, eliminated GMOs from their supply chains. As a consequence almost no GMO-derived foods, with the exception of meat and animal products, have been sold in EU retail stores or restaurants from 1997 until now.

With no real market for GMOs, EU farmers have refused to grow them. EU activists point out that if meat, eggs and dairy products derived from animals fed GMO grains had to be labeled, there would be no GMOs in Europe. Period.

Frankenfoods Fight Heats Up in the U.S.

In the U.S., the battle against GE foods and crops has been markedly more difficult. Since 1994, government regulatory agencies have refused to require labels on GMOs, or to require independent safety testing beyond the obviously biased research carried out by Monsanto and other genetic engineering companies themselves.

Despite government and industry opposition, and limited funding, a growing number of pro-organic and anti-GMO campaigners carried out a variety of public education, marketplace pressure and boycotts between 1994 and 2012 designed to either ban or label GMOs. Although GMO labeling bills, which according to numerous polls are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, were introduced in Congress over and over again during the past two decades, none have gathered more than nominal support from lawmakers And media coverage, at least until the California GMO labeling ballot initiative in 2012 (Proposition 37) and the Washington State ballot initiative in 2013 (I-522), has been generally sparse, with reporters routinely spouting industry propaganda that GMOs are safe, environmentally sustainable and necessary to feed a growing global population.

But the tide is beginning to turn. More farmers are rejecting GMO seeds, more consumers are demanding non-GMO foods, or at the least, labels on GMO foods. And the media is beginning to give the anti-GMO movement if not its fair share, at least substantially more ink than we’ve seen in decades.

Farmers Sound the Alarm about GMO Contamination

Between 1994-2012, the number of acres in the U.S. planted in GMO crops has grown significantly. Today, 169 million acres—almost half of all cultivated U.S. farmlands—are now growing GMO crops.

But despite the proliferation of GMO crops, we’re now seeing increased demand for non-GMO seeds. This is partly because farmers are growing frustrated with having to buy more and more pesticides and herbicides for GMO crops, as weeds and pests grow increasingly resistant to products like Monsanto’s Roundup.

But it’s also because organic and non-GMO farmers are speaking out about contamination of their crops by nearby GMO crops. Just this week, a new survey published by Food & Water Watch revealed that a third of U.S. organic farmers report problems with contamination from nearby GMO crops, and over half of the farmers surveyed said they’ve had grain shipments rejected because of contamination.

Consumers Demand non-GMO

Increasing demand for non-GMO crops also stems from consumers’ heightened concerns about health, which in turn is increasing demand for non-GMO and organic crops and foods. The turning point in the anti-GMO Movement in the U.S. came in 2012-13 when organic and anti-GE organizations, led by the Organic Consumers Association, Food Democracy Now, Center for Food Safety, Alliance for Natural Health and others, joined by a number of organic and natural health companies including Mercola.com, Dr. Bronner’s Soaps, Nature’s Path, Lundberg Family Farms, Natural News, and Nutiva, decided to bypass the federal government and launch high-profile, multi-million dollar state ballot initiative campaigns for mandatory labeling of GMOs in California and Washington State.

Although anti-GMO campaigners narrowly lost 51%-49% in both states, large genetic engineering and food corporations were forced to spend over $70 million ($12 million of which was illegally laundered by the Grocery Manufacturers Association in Washington). In addition GMA members, most of whom are high-profile food manufacturers, seriously damaged their brands and reputations by carrying out a misleading, dirty tricks advertising campaign that flooded the airwaves in California and Washington and antagonized millions of consumers—many of whom began boycotting their products and assailing their Facebook pages.

By 2012, thanks to the massive media coverage of the California GMO labeling initiative, organic foods and products reached $35 billion in sales, representing almost 5 percent of all grocery store sales, with non-GMO “natural” food sales reaching another $15 billion.

This growth in sales has not gone unnoticed by food manufacturers and retailers. Although 75-80 percent of all non-organic processed foods contain GMOs, General Mills, Kraft General Foods, Chipotle, Ben and Jerry’s and Whole Foods Market, responding to public concern and marketplace pressure, are now moving to eliminate GMOs from some or all of their brand name products.

Push for GMO Labeling Laws Continues

In the meantime, grassroots activists continue to push for mandatory labeling laws. In 2012-13, they lobbied legislators in 30 states, achieving partial success in Maine and Connecticut. In 2014 Vermont, Oregon and several others states appear poised to pass GMO labeling laws, while voters in five Oregon and California counties will attempt to pass GMO bans.

Frantically trying to head off the inevitable, the GMA and a powerful coalition of genetic engineering, industrial agriculture, restaurant, supermarket and junk food manufacturers have begun lobbying Congress to take away states’ rights to pass laws requiring GMO food labels. The GMA has also lobbied the FDA and Congress to allow the obviously fraudulent, though routine, industry practice of labeling or marketing GE-tainted foods as “natural.”

At the state level the GE Lobby, Big Food and the Farm Bureau are sponsoring bills to take away the right of counties and municipalities to pass laws banning GMOs or restricting hazardous industrial agriculture practices.

On the international front, genetic engineering, pharmaceutical and Big Food companies are attempting to subvert GMO labels or bans by “fast-tracking,” with no public input or discussion, transnational trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). These so-called Free Trade agreements would allow multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer and Dupont to sue local, state or even national governments that interfere with their profits, by passing laws regulating or banning GMOs or other controversial agricultural practices.

Although these profoundly pro-corporate and anti-consumer and anti-environmental trade agreements in theory can stop GMO labeling laws and bans from coming into effect, in political terms they are perceived by the majority of the body politic and even many state and local officials as highly authoritarian and anti-democratic. Similarly TPP and TAFTA are correctly perceived by many national political, environmental and labor leaders as undermining national sovereignty, sustainability and economic justice.

Why Both Labeling and Bans Are Necessary

Once GMOs foods are labeled, informed consumers will move to protect themselves and their families by not buying them. Once enough consumers shun GMO-tainted and labeled foods, stores will stop selling them and food manufacturers will stop putting GMO food ingredients in their products. However as the EU experience shows, labeling must eventually be comprehensive, with a requirement for meat, eggs and dairy products to be labeled if the animals have been fed GMO feed.

But food labeling alone cannot protect the environment, or non-GMO and organic farmers from GE drift and seed contamination. This is why county and regional bans on GMO cultivation and the creation of regional GMO-free zones are important. More than 80 percent of farmers surveyed by Food & Water Watch said they were “concerned” about contamination, while 60 percent said they were “very concerned.” Farmers said a lax U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been excessively influenced by the biotech industry.

The Food & Water Watch report comes just as the USDA has extended its public comment period on “coexistence” between GMO and non-GMO agriculture.

In the U.S. the largest food fight in history will soon intensify. Throwing gasoline on the fire, GE companies are arrogantly and foolhardily attempting to introduce genetically engineered fish, apples and “Agent Orange” (2,4 D) herbicide-resistant corn and soy on the market, just at the time when human health and environmental concerns are escalating. These new Frankenfoods and crops will survive in the marketplace only if there are no mandatory labeling laws and no legitimate safety testing.

But this “no labels” scenario is unlikely to continue. State legislative battles in Vermont, Oregon, and other states will likely reach critical mass in 2014, forcing industry and the federal government to finally adopt EU-type regulations and practices on GMOs. Once labeling is in place (including labels on meat, fish dairy, and eggs) genetic engineering companies, led by Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF will have no choice but to abandon GMOs and gene-splicing, in favor of less controversial hybrid seed/cross-breeding practices (which do not require labels) such as “marker assisted breeding.”

If industry and government on the other hand dig in their heels, stomping on consumer, state, municipal and community rights, telling us to “shut up and eat your Frankenfoods,” America’s food revolution may turn into a full-scale rebellion.

America’s organic consumers and natural health advocates invite you to join us in this decisive battle to drive GMOs off the market and make the great transition to healthy and sustainable food and farming. Click here to make a donation to this cause, the Food Fight of Our Lives.

Major Food Manufacturers Push to Label Genetically Modified Products as “Natural”

Back to News
Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Food manufacturers who use genetically modified (GMO) ingredients want permission from the federal government to stamp their products with the word “natural.”

The Grocery Manufacturers Association has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve their plan, which would mean any food containing GMO corn, sugar and other such ingredients could be sold as “natural.”

One advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), blasted the food companies’ proposal.

Scott Faber, vice president of the EWG, called the association’s request “audacious.”

“It’s like they’re trying to get the government to say night is day and black is white,” Faber told The New York Times.

The request comes as food manufacturers are increasingly under attack from opponents of GMO ingredients. At least 65 lawsuits are pending in various courts aimed at forcing companies to stop using the word “natural” to describe products with GMO elements.

PepsiCo settled one such lawsuit in August over its use of the phrases “All Natural,” “All Natural Fruit” and “Non-GMO” on bottles of Naked Juices. The company said it would remove “All Natural” from the drinks’ packaging and pay consumers $9 million.

However, PepsiCo will still use “non-GMO” on the juices, even though they are not certified as such.

Five Lessons From the Battles Against GMOs

High-Stakes Battle in Washington
by RONNIE CUMMINS


Twenty years after the controversial introduction of unlabeled and untested genetically engineered foods and crops, opposition to GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) and Monsanto the devil  has created one of the largest netroots-grassroots movements in the U.S.

There are arguably more important issues facing us today than the battle against Frankenfoods. The climate crisis and corporate control over [the] government and media come to mind. But the rapidly growing anti-GMO Movement illustrates the powerful synergy that can develop from the combined use of social media, marketplace pressure and political action. Recent developments in this sector indicate that out-of-control corporations, media, politicians and the proverbial “1 percent” can be outsmarted and outmaneuvered. And quite possibly defeated.

In the wake of high-stakes multi-million dollar GMO labeling ballot initiatives in California in 2012, and Washington State in 2013, an army of organic food and natural health activists have put Corporate America and the political elite on the defensive. We’ve [demonstrated] that aggressive populist issue-framing; unconventional “inside-outside” coalition-building; marketplace pressure; and online list-building, mobilization and fundraising – strategically channeled into local and state-based political action – can begin to even up the odds between David and Goliath.

Here are five strategic lessons from the ongoing battle against GMOs in the U.S, lessons that may be applicable to a broad range of political issues.

• Aggressive populist issue-framing works.

The desire to know what’s in our food, coupled with a growing concern for food safety and a distrust of large chemical companies, the mass media, Congress and federal regulatory agencies, is a hot-button issue that unites the majority of Americans – Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and Independents alike.

Forty percent of consumers believe that unlabeled genetically engineered foods and crops are unsafe. Another 40 percent are unsure. These numbers terrify large supermarket chains, biotech companies and food corporations. So does the notion that states such as Washington, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont will soon require mandatory labeling of GMOs – which will likely drive these controversial foods and crops off the market, just as labeling laws have already done in Europe.

Anti-GMO campaigners have gained the support of millions of consumers and voters by framing] food safety as a populist issue. And by relentlessly and aggressively challenging the opposition – big-name companies that include Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé, General Mills and others.

• Unconventional “inside-outside” coalition-building builds critical mass.

After 20 years of grassroots public education and advocacy, the organic and natural health movements, led by a hybrid coalition of non-profit public interest groups, such as the Organic Consumers Association and Food Democracy Now, and green businesses, including Mercola.com, Dr. Bronner’s, and Nature’s Path, are approaching something like critical mass.  

Over 100 million U.S. consumers are now regularly shopping for organic and natural foods, nutritional supplements and other products, giving rise to a rapidly growing $80 billion-a-year market for organic and natural products. One of the most important accomplishments of the right-to-know, anti-GMO movement has been to unite the advocacy and fundraising efforts of non-profit groups and health and green-minded for-profit businesses. After 20 years of often operating on shoestring budgets, activist groups (the “outsiders”) are now increasingly joining hands with a number of profitable organic/green/Fair Trade businesses (the “insiders”). This inside-outside strategy has managed to raise a not insignificant war chest of almost $20 million to support the state GMO labeling ballot initiatives in California and Washington in 2012 and 2013, while simultaneously pressuring major brands, such as Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s and Chipotle, to embrace GMO labeling.  

At the same time activist groups with a more radical message (“outsiders”) are learning that you must, for maximum impact, work with more moderate groups (the “insiders”), and vice-versa. This ecumenical “inside-outside” strategy has allowed the more radical organic and natural health groups and scientists to highlight the alarming human health and environmental hazards of GMOs, and carry out boycotts, street demonstrations and direct action, while the less radical campaign groups and coalitions meanwhile appeal to a more moderate demographic with the mainstream message that consumers have the right to know what’s in their food.

• Marketplace pressure and political action must go hand-in-hand.

Anti-GMO campaigners have now learned that marketplace pressure and political action go hand-in-hand. It’s not enough to just vote with your pocketbook for organic and non-GMO foods and products, to reward good companies and brands and punish the bad ones. We must get political, and vote for a healthy, climate-friendly food and farming system in the voting booth as well. If we want to drive GMO foods off the market, we must not only walk our talk in the marketplace and in our everyday lives, but also “get political” and mobilize our base to get involved in legislative battles and political campaigns.  

One important consequence of marketplace pressure and boycotts is their potential to gradually divide our opponents. In the case of the anti-GMO movement, we’ve begun to drive a wedge between the biotech/industrial agriculture corporations, and their erstwhile allies, food manufacturers and supermarket chains. In the wake of the California GMO labeling ballot initiative (Proposition 37), the Organic Consumers Association and our allies launched a nationwide boycott of Traitor Brands, the organic and natural brands whose parent corporations spent $20 million [along with the biotech industry’s $30 million] to defeat Prop 37. 

We sabotaged several dozen corporate Facebook pages, tarnishing brand names such as Kashi, Cascadian Farm, Honest Tea, Naked Juice, Silk, Horizon, and Ben and Jerry’s, to depress sales. This caused several large multinationals, including Unilever, parent company of Ben and Jerry’s, and Mars, parent company of Seeds of Change, to back off from anti-labeling activities. Other retail and food giants, including Wal-Mart, fearing an escalation in consumer activism, have begun lobbying the FDA to implement federal GMO food labels.

• Sophisticated online list-building, mobilization and fundraising are key.

Anti-GMO campaigners are rapidly becoming more sophisticated in terms of building broad coalitions, using online petitions to build large email lists, pooling national email lists, segmenting national lists in order to target state and local constituencies, using Facebook, Twitter and other social media for network-building and mobilization, setting up c4 lobbying organizations to complement c3 non-profit groups, and raising funds online.

In the recent GMO ballot initiative campaigns in California and Washington, as well as state legislative campaigns for labeling in several dozen other states, right-to-know supporters have been able to send coordinated or complementary email messages to over 10 million people at once. Over the past 12 months groups like the Organic Consumers Association, Mercola.com, Food Democracy Now, Natural News, Alliance for Natural Health, Center for Food Safety, Just Label It, Environmental Working Group, Cornucopia, Friends of the Earth, CREDO, and MoveOn have been able to send out anti-GMO or pro-labeling messages to literally millions of consumers and voters on a regular basis, generating thousands of grassroots volunteers, organizing thousands of local events and protests, and raising over $20 million, mainly in small donations. The anti-GMO movement may not have the deep pockets or the advertising and PR clout of the biotech and Big Food lobby when it comes to the corporate media, but we are rapidly developing our own mass media on the Internet and Facebook.

• Local and state political action is more effective than campaigns that target federal laws and lawmakers.

The anti-GMO movement, like other social change movements, has learned the hard way that corporations and the wealthy elite control not only the mass media, but the federal government, Supreme Court, and regulatory agencies such as the FDA, USDA, and EPA. After decades of sending petitions and lobbying the White House, Congress and the FDA, to no avail, it has become clear that the political elite, including President Obama, care more about their wealthy campaign contributors than they do about their constituents, including the 93 percent who, according to a recent New York Times poll, support mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.  

As a consequence the anti-GMO movement has moved its focus away from the unfavorable terrain of Washington D.C., and instead turned its attention to marketplace pressure, and state, county and local political campaigns, especially ballot initiatives. Citizen ballot initiatives are legal in 24 states and approximately 1,000 counties and municipalities. This form of direct democracy gives voters the power to enact labeling laws, bans or regulatory and zoning restrictions on biotech corporations and Big Ag, bypassing indentured politicians and federal bureaucrats. A number of California and Washington State counties over the last decade have moved beyond just labeling to outright bans on GMO crops, thanks to citizen-driven local political action. In 2014, four Oregon counties will have ballot initiatives calling for bans on GMO crops.

Win or lose in Washington State on November 5, the anti-GMO Movement has evolved into a savvy army of grassroots activists who are committed to the ongoing battle to reclaim our food and farming systems, part of a larger battle to transform the entire political and economic system.

The Fight for GMO-Free Food

Why Labeling is a Minimum Demand
by KARL GROSSMAN


Will New York State be the first state in the nation to require the labeling of food containing what has become known as GMO—genetically modified organisms?

More than 60 countries have enacted laws banning the use of GMO in producing food or requiring the labeling of food with ingredients that have utilized genetic modification or genetic engineering. But because of heavy pressure by the biotechnology industry, there are no such laws or regulations in the United States.

There was an attempt in California in November to pass a referendum—Proposition 37—requiring labeling of GMO food. But despite initial strong public support, it failed after an advertising blitz led by biotech giant Monsanto.

“There was a very well-funded misinformation campaign,” said Mark Kastel, co-director of the Cornucopia Institute. “Forty-six million”—the amount of dollars industry poured into the campaign against the proposition, five times as much as labeling supporters—“buys an awful lot of confusion and misunderstanding,” he commented.

Now political action on a state level for labeling genetically modified food has come to New York with a bill before its State Legislature requiring it.

“Consumers have a right to know what’s in their food, especially concerning products for which health and environmental concerns have been raised,” says the sponsor of the measure in the State Senate, Kenneth LaValle of Port Jefferson. A long-time educator and an attorney. he says: “My bill was introduced to give consumers the freedom to choose between GMOs and conventional products. Essentially, if a foodstuff is produced using genetic engineering, this must be indicated on its label.”

Kathleen Furey, education and media director of GMO Free NY—www.gmofreeny.net—has been busy criss-crossing Long Island, New York City and elsewhere in the state challenging GMOs and pressing for passage of the proposed law.

Crops using GMOs were introduced commercially in the United States in 1996. But “Americans are still dining in the dark,” said Ms. Furey in a recent presentation in Sag Harbor, New York. Ms. Furey, a graduate of Stony Brook University’s Sustainability Studies Department with a degree in environmental humanities, said that now in the U.S., 88% of corn, 90% of sugar beets and 94% of soybeans are grown using GMO. Some 80% of “bottled, boxed or canned foods in the U.S.” contain GMO ingredients. And livestock feed “is comprised mostly of GMO corn and soybeans.” GMOs “dominate the agricultural landscape” of America today, she said.

People have “the right to make informed choices about what we eat,” she emphasized. “We have the right to be protected from food health risks and the right to stop being used as guinea pigs.”

GMO technology is used to create “transgenic species” of plants and animals. Through it, genes from one often unrelated species are introduced into another.

The biotechnology industry insists GMO technology doesn’t harm people and is useful. It points to how, with genetic modification, plants resistant to some pests have been developed.

But GMO opponents hold it is harmful and various uses have backfired. Moreover, they charge that the U.S. government—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency empowered to protect Americans from contaminants in their food—has been acting as a rubber stamp for the biotechnology industry, doing its bidding. And it’s not that inside of government there isn’t an awareness of the dangers of GMOs, noted Ms. Furey. She pointed to “internal memos from FDA scientists citing the risks of GMO safety and toxicity that were disregarded by their superiors.”

On pest resistance through GMOs, Ms. Furey spoke of how “superbugs resistant to pest-resistanct GMO crops have evolved and are destroying those crops.” Also, “superweeds resistant to herbicides sprayed on GMO crops have evolved and caused farmers to spray more herbicide per acre and resort to the use of even more-toxic herbicides.”

Ms. Furey and GMO Free NY are supported by national organizations.

The Institute for Responsible Technology—http://www.responsibletechnology.org—based in Iowa, describes genetically modified foods as “not safe.” Its literature stresses a report by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine citing studies finding “serious health risks associated” with GMO food including “infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging…and changes to major organs and the gastrointestinal system.”

Food & Water Watch—http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org—headquartered in Washington, D.C., is warning on its website about the Food and Drug Administration now “paving the way for genetically engineered salmon,” which it calls “frankenfish.” This, furthermore, “would open the floodgates” for genetically modified “cows and pigs which biotech companies are waiting in the wings to finally commercialize after years of research and development.”

Just last month, the U.S. Congress passed and President Barack Obama approved what GMO foes call the “Monsanto the devil Protection Act”—a measure to last initially six months stripping federal courts of the authority to halt the planting and sale of genetically modified crops if litigation is brought alleging health risks. Ms. Furey calls it “incredibly unconstitutional.”

The reach of the biotechnology industry extends into the U.S. Supreme Court. The court had before it in February a case involving Monsanto the devil and genetically engineered seeds, yet Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly a Monsanto the devil attorney, refused to recuse himself. He refused to recuse himself, too, in 2010 in another case involving Monsanto the devil and GMO seeds and joined in the decision favoring Monsanto the devil’s position. “It’s outrageous,” says Ms. Furey.

Overall, the biotechnology industry’s drive for GMOs has been incredibly undemocratic and the process is quite likely unhealthy. Labeling is a minimum—so people can at least know what food is genetically modified and choose what’s still GMO-free.

GMO AGo-Go

Monsanto the Devil vs. The People

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 by Al-Jazeera
by Charlotte Silver

Last week Monsanto the devil announced staggering profits from 2012 to celebratory shareholders while American farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the Biotech giant’s right to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto the devil’s seeds. On January 10 oral arguments began before the U.S. Court of Appeals to decide whether to reverse the cases' dismissal last February.

Monsanto the devil has established a conveniently intimidating reputation as "a ruthless prosecutor of non-GMO farmers" whose fields have been "contaminated by their neighbours' genetically engineered crops".

Monsanto the devil's earnings nearly doubled analysts' projections and its total revenue reached $2.94bn at the end of 2012. The increased price of Roundup herbicide, continued market domination in the United States and, perhaps most significant, expanded markets in Latin America are all contributing factors to Monsanto the devil's booming business.

Exploiting their patent on GMO corn, soybean and cotton, Monsanto the devil asserts an insidious control of those agricultural industries in the US, effectively squeezing out conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market. (Until the end of 2012, Monsanto the devil was under investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech companies, but that investigation was quietly closed before the year's end.)

The seemingly modest objective of the current lawsuit, OSGATA et al v Monsanto the devil, originally filed in March 2011, is to acquire legal protection for organic and conventional farmers from Monsanto the devil's aggressive prosecution of inadvertent patent infringements. But the implications of the suit are momentous. If the DC Court of Appeal reverses the dismissal, a process of discovery will be instigated that could unveil a reservoir of information, access to which Monsanto the devil has withheld from public knowledge - both by not disclosing it and preventing independent research.

Monsanto the devil's abuse of patents

Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto the devil filed 144 lawsuits against family farmers and settled 700 cases out of court. Furthermore, food groups estimate that Monsanto the devil investigates hundreds of farmers each year as potential culprits of patent infringement.

Victims of Monsanto the devil's predatory lawsuits include farmers who used Monsanto the devil seed but violated the licensing agreement, as well as those farmers who never had any intention of growing GE plants. OSGATA et al v Monsanto the devil deals with the latter group and represents 31 farms and farmers, 13 seed-selling businesses, and 31 agricultural organizations that represent more than 300,000 individuals and 4,500 farms or farmers.

Plaintiffs requested a declaratory judgment that would ensure Monsanto the devil was not entitled to sue the plaintiffs for patent infringement.

Jim Gerritson, president of OSGATA (Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association) and lead plaintiff in the case, explained to me that organic and non-GMO farmers are a "Classic example of why Congress passed the Declaratory Judgment Act: if you have a group that fears being bullied by a large company, they can petition for protection from claims of patent infringement."

But the federal courts have always protected Monsanto the devil's rights to profit via a patenting system that increasingly impinges on individual and market freedom, allowing Monsanto the devil to abuse its patent rights. In a natural alliance, OSGATA is represented by attorney Dan Ravicher and Public Patent Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating a just patent system that balances individual freedom and the ethical issuing of patents.

Monsanto the devil has established a conveniently intimidating reputation as a ruthless prosecutor of non-GMO farmers whose fields have been contaminated by their neighbours' genetically engineered corn - either through cross-pollination or accidental seed mixing during harvest.

With these terrifying exemplars in mind, farmers have taken on the burden of preventing contamination by setting up buffer zones, conducting genetic testing and in some cases, giving up on planting the crop altogether.

Monopolizing effect

By detailing how many conventional farmers have given up trying to grow certain crops, OSGATA's motion to appeal emphasizes the monopolization that has resulted from Monsanto the devil's aggressive pursuit of patent infringement cases. It is estimated that 88 percent of corn and 93 percent of soybeans are genetically modified, most of them by Monsanto the devil. Bryce Stephens, an organic farmer in the northwest of Kansas, is one of those farmers who have decided to forgo growing corn and soybeans due to the inevitable contamination that will result.

"My fear of contamination by transgenic corn and soybeans and the resulting risk of being accused of patent infringement prevent me from growing corn and soybeans on my farm. There is no other reason why I do not grow those crops, and I would very much like to do so."

As Gerritson described to me, "Farmers have suffered economic loss because they've abandoned growing corn and soybeans because they are certain they will be contaminated. They cannot put their farms and families at risk of being sued for patent infringement."

Monsanto the devil knows that consumers won't voluntarily buy their products - a lesson they learned in Europe when GE foods there were required to be labelled as such. In America, the company and its allies have spent millions to defeat local labelling initiatives, most recently in California. But if the company successfully crowds out conventional farmers, Americans won't have a choice - with or without a label.

In spite of the creation of this dangerous monopoly, in February 2012, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted Monsanto the devil's request and dismissed the initial suit, casting the farmers' concerns as "overstated"; urging the plaintiffs to trust Monsanto the devil's (non-legally binding) promises to not exercise their patent rights over inadvertent acquisition of traces of GE plants; and insisting that farmers have created "a controversy where none exists".

If the farmers' case is allowed to go forward, the very least that will happen is of supreme importance: that is, through the process of discovery the public will gain access to a trove of information that Monsanto the devil has successfully stashed away. Ravicher believes that it can then be established that the products Monsanto the devil peddles are not healthy and, hence, are not for the good of society. Quoting a 150-year-old case, Ravicher reminds us that "an invention to poison the people is not patentable".

It's clear that the movement to defeat Monsanto the devil is growing. Win or lose this round, the people are not giving up on taking down this monster.

GMO Food Fight

Round Two
by RONNIE CUMMINS


On November 6, in the wake of one of the most expensive and scurrilous smear campaigns in history, six million voters scared the hell out of Monsanto the devil and Big Food Inc. by coming within a razor’s edge of passing the first statewide mandatory labeling law for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Prop 37, a citizens’ ballot initiative that would have required the mandatory labeling of billions of dollars of genetically engineered (GE) foods and put an end to the routine industry practice of fraudulently marketing GE-tainted foods as “natural” or “all natural,” lost by a narrow margin of 48.6% to 51.4%. Opponents couldn’t claim anything close to a landslide, even though they outspent the pro-labeling campaign almost six to one.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) immediately put a happy face on the narrow victory, repeating its tired old propaganda in a public statement: “Proposition 37 was a deeply flawed measure that would have resulted in higher food costs, frivolous lawsuits and increased state bureaucracies. This is a big win for California consumers, taxpayers, business and farmers.”

But Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the Food Marketing Institute, came closer to expressing the real sentiments of the big guns who opposed Prop 37, a measure she had previously said “scared us to death,” in her official statement:

“This gives us hope that you can, with a well-funded, well-organized, well-executed campaign, defeat a ballot initiative and go directly to the voters. We hope we don’t have too many of them, because you can’t keep doing that over and over again . . .”.

Maybe they can’t. But we can. Unlike the Food Marketing Institute and its friends at the GMA, consumers can – and will – “keep doing that over and over again.” We can – and will – propose state laws and state ballot initiatives as often as we need, in as many states as we must, until we have what 61 other countries have: truth and transparency in the form of mandatory GMO labeling laws. Far from giving up, the alternative food and farming movement that was narrowly defeated in California has evolved into a battle-savvy, seasoned national movement, bigger and stronger than ever.

As Zuri Allen, California Field Organizer of the Organic Consumers Association put it, “We may have lost this first major battle in California, but millions of angry and energized consumers across the country are now joining together in a nationwide right to know campaign which will ultimately drive genetically engineered crops and foods off the market.”

That clearly has Big Biotech and Big Food worried. And well it should. We’ve barely rung in the new year, and already GMO labeling battles are heating up in Washington State, Vermont and Connecticut. Other states aren’t far behind.

On Jan. 4, activists in Washington State delivered approximately 300,000 signatures to the state legislature to guarantee that a mandatory GMO labeling Initiative, I-522, will be on the ballot in November. Initial polling shows that Washington state voters will likely pass this Ballot Initiative, no matter how much money the biotech industry and large food corporations put into an anti-labeling campaign.

On the other side of the country, Vermont is picking up where it left off last year after the governor caved in to Monsanto’s threats to sue the state if it passed a GMO labeling law. Undaunted, and buoyed by 90% support from consumers, legislators will reintroduce a GMO labeling bill in early January. Vermont’s pro-organic, anti-GMO proponents fully expect to pass a labeling bill by May. Connecticut is right behind them, with plans to introduce a similarly popular GMO labeling bill early this year.

Why a win is just around the corner.

Giant biotech and junk food corporations, joined by major food processors and supermarket chains, poured more than $46 million dollars into a vicious dirty tricks campaign to defeat GMO labeling in California. Their tactics included a relentless barrage of TV and radio ads falsely claiming GE food labels would raise grocery prices, hurt family farmers, and enrich trial lawyers. They unleashed “scientific” testimonials manufactured by phony front groups, and they mailed counterfeit voter guides. They may even have engaged in “vote-flipping” by pre-programming electronic voting tabulators.

A statewide pre-election eve poll conducted by Lake Research found that the Biotech Behemoth’s “No on 37” propaganda campaign successfully confused many Californians. As of Nov. 5, the day before the election, the majority of Californians stated that they still supported mandatory labeling of GE foods. But a critical mass, especially the 40% who voted early by absentee ballot, said they were willing to give up their right to know what was in their food if mandatory GE labels might increase food costs, expand the size and power of state bureaucrats, harm family farmers or unfairly benefit trial lawyers and other “special interests.”

That changed once the YES on 37 campaign launched its own modest $3-million ad campaign on October 27. Once the pro-labeling ads rolled out, several million undecided voters saw through the biotech and junk-food industry propaganda and voted Yes on 37. In fact, Prop 37 won the election-day vote. But it was too little, too late. The campaign couldn’t recover from its losses in early voting.

That was California. Washington State promises to tell a different story.

Looking at the logistics and outcome of the Prop 37 campaign in California in 2012 and comparing these to the upcoming I-522 battle in Washington, there are several major differences that will likely prove to be decisive:

Size and campaign costs. California is an enormous state, both geographically and in terms of population. Its TV and radio ad markets are also among the priciest in the country. Tough for a grassroots campaign with a small budget to reach California voters far and wide, on the ground and through the media. Even tougher to compete with an opposition willing and able to spend $46 million to win. Compare that scenario with Washington State, which has one-fifth the population of California, and where $1 spent on TV ads equals $8 in California. Factor in that Washington’s population is highly concentrated in the health and environmentally-conscious Seattle metropolitan area, and it’s easy to see that internet, in-person contact, and radio and TV advertising will cost less and be easier to execute in Washington than it was in California. Experts estimate that Monsanto and its allies will be able to spend only $20 million in Washington on advertising. That’s enough to saturate the state’s airwaves. But it’s not too much for the Yes on I-522 campaign to overcome as long as it can raise and spend $4-$5 million – about half of what the California labeling campaign raised.

Timing. In California, Yes on 37 forces didn’t get on the ballot until May. That left only six months for public education and fundraising. In Washington, I-522 proponents have a full nine months before people begin their voting (which is by mail).

Support from farmers and rural communities. In California, Prop 37 was supported mostly by consumers and organic farmers. In Washington State, wheat farmers, whether organic or not, apple farmers and fishing communities also vocally support mandatory GMO labeling. That’s because GMO labeling is arguably in the best economic interests of a state where unlabeled GMO wheat, apples and salmon spilling into the market would severely damage state agricultural exports to countries that either forbid GMO imports or require GMO labeling.

Progressive elected officials and electorate. California’s Governor Brown refused to take a stand on Prop 37. But Washington’s new elected Governor, Jay Inslee, is a long-time supporter and former Congressional advocate of GMO labeling. Washington voters recently reminded us that they are proud progressives, by approving the legalization of marijuana via a November ballot Initiative. California voters defeated a similar measure in 2010.

The Frankenfish controversy. Despite enormous public opposition and warnings by scientists that genetically engineered salmon pose unacceptable health and environmental risks, the Obama administration’s FDA announced in late December that it would nonetheless allow unlabeled genetically engineered salmon to be commercialized. Polls show that Washington voters are adamantly opposed to this fast-growing, likely allergenic mutant salmon – part fish, part eel – entering the market. Fishermen/fisherwomen, chefs and restaurants are already raising their voices in opposition. Meanwhile in Alaska, GMO salmon will have to be labeled because of a state law passed in 2005. The biotech industry is going to have a difficult time explaining why Frankenfish have to be labeled in Alaska, but not in Washington or other states.

Divisions between Big Food and Big Biotech. As the comments by the Food Marketing Institute executive suggest, big food companies are starting to worry about their image. They’re worried about having to fight costly, high-profile battles against GMO labeling in numerous states, possibly even simultaneously. A number of large food companies that dumped big money into defeating Prop 37 – companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft and Dean Foods, own “natural” or organic brands. Those brands, including Kashi, Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Ben and Jerry’s, White Wave, Horizon and others, are starting to feel the heat from angry consumers who have joined the “Traitor Boycott.” How long will the nation’s food manufacturers and supermarket chains carry the water and do the dirty work for Monsanto the devil and biotech industry?

It’s only a matter of time before we pass GMO legislation. Once we do, it will mark the beginning of the end for GMO food and farming, just as it did in Europe. But to ensure that this happens, sooner rather than later, state GMO right-to-know campaigns in Washington, Vermont, Connecticut and other states need money, technical assistance volunteers, and endorsements. You can help by donating to the Washington state ballot initiative, I-522, and other state GMO labeling efforts.

Why Monsanto the devil is Fighting Tooth and Nail Against California's Prop 37

Thursday, November 1, 2012 by Common Dreams

by Sonali Kolhatkar and Vandana Shiva

 

 

 

A new poll conducted by the University of Southern California and the LA Times has found that Proposition 37, the GMO labeling initiative has slipped a whopping 17 points since the last poll in September. The proposition continues to lead but only by 2 percentage points with less than a week before the election. Thirteen percent of likely voters are still undecided on whether to require mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms in foods.
The dramatic shift in opinion is likely due to the barrage of dollars spent by vested corporate interests to defeat Prop 37. Chief among them are Monsanto the devil corporation, the leading commercial force behind the creation, promotion, and widespread use of pesticides and genetically modified seeds in farming, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association which represents the world's largest processed food producers and distributors such as Coca Cola, Pepsi Co, and Nestle. Together, they have spent $41 million in advertising and other campaigning, claiming that Proposition 37 is "anti-science," and would lead to huge increases in food prices and the banning of safe foods. At least two newspapers have concluded the No on Prop 37 ads are misleading and deceptive.
Now, one of the world's most renowned scientists and environmental activists, Vandana Shiva, is speaking out on behalf of proposition 37. Long a thorn in the side of Monsanto the devil, Dr. Shiva has taken on big bio-tech and agribusiness companies in her home country of India and works with farmers groups all over the world to protect their right to farm using their traditional methods and seeds.

Trained as a physicist, Vandana Shiva is the founder of Navadanya, "a movement which aims to protect nature and people's rights to knowledge, biodiversity, water and food," by creating community seed banks among other things. She just concluded a two week long global action called seed freedom." She has written nearly two dozen books, including Democratizing Biology: Reinventing Biology from a Feminist, Ecological and Third World Perspective, and Soil Not Oil. Her forthcoming book out next year is entitled Making Peace With the Earth: Beyond Land Wars And Food Wars. Vandana Shiva has won a number of awards including the Sydney Peace Prize and the Right Livlihood Award and was named by the Guardian newspaper as one of their Top 100 most inspiring women.

I had the opportunity to recently speak with Vandana Shiva during her visit to Los Angeles where she was promoting a "Yes" vote on Prop 37.

Kolhatkar: One of the most exciting developments since I last spoke to you is the ballot measure proposition 37 which has garnered a lot of excitement here in the state. As somebody who is an international activist, how far behind is the US government on the issue of labeling genetically modified organisms in our food?

Shiva: I think Proposition 37 is an opportunity for both the US citizens - and I put the US citizens first - and the US government, to catch up with the rest of the world. Europe has had mandatory labeling from early 2003. India has just announced mandatory labeling beginning in January 2013. And this is out of a case we filed in 2006 saying every citizen has a right to know what they are eating and a right to choose: Do they want to be vegetarians or non vegetarians? Do they want to be chemical eaters or do they want to be organic eaters? Do they want to be GMO eaters or non-GMO eaters? These are fundamental choices and if on chemicals, we can accept labeling, if on transfats we can accept labeling, on simple things like how much salt and sugar is in our food, we can accept labeling, why should the government and the industry be scared of just putting a label saying, "This has GMOs." Especially if they are not worried about what GMOs do and they are not worried about how many facts they are suppressing in the process of pushing GMOs on unwilling consumers not getting the full information.

Kolhatkar: You are a scientist by background - your training is in science. Those who are against prop 37 such as Monsanto the devil, which is a long time foe of yours, say that Proposition 37 is anti-science, because there is no evidence that GMOs harms human beings. Does one actually need evidence of harm in order to have labeling?

Shiva: Well I think the labeling question is totally separate from the scientific debate of safety. A label is just a fundamental democratic issue. It's about the freedom of citizens' right to know and choose. A certain amount of salt is not harmful for us, but we still put it on the label. Calcium is not harmful for us; we still put it on the label, just for people to make decisions on the basis of information.

Earlier this year, CODEX Alimentarius which is the highest body on food safety, said every country has a right to label. This was after a twenty year tussle where the United States had tried to block the right to label as a global right, because then they could have used labeling to sue countries, which they did with Europe.

There are of course huge scientific issues related to GMOs and tragically it is corporations like Monsanto the devil who are pushing anti-science, non-science on the public. I have lived long enough with this issue to know what they've done across the world. I was on the first expert group set up by the United Nations to frame the bio-safety protocol and I saw how in the United Nations they tried to mislead.

The United Nations which represents countries across the world wouldn't have a protocol on bio-safety if safety had been proven. Now unfortunately the United States is not a signatory [to that protocol] and therefore it is constantly denying its citizens the rights that citizens elsewhere have.

On the Science question, what is the science of genetic engineering? It is really not a science; it is a technology of shooting a gene that doesn't belong to a plant through two means. One is a gene gun and one is an agro bacterium or a plant cancer. You don't know where it's landing; you don't have the science of prediction. You don't know what it is doing. You don't know if it is getting absorbed, that is why you add antibiotic resistance markers. You know the plant is not expressing it so you add super virulent viruses to pump up the expression. They're called promoters.

So, you have a bundle of toxic risky genes. All of the real science tells us there is a phenomenon called horizontal gene transfer in nature. Vertical transfer is where your genes are taken from your parents, so it's offspring to offspring. Horizontal transfer is when it moves across species. We know the bacteria in our food hybridize with the bacteria in our gut. We know the viruses in our food hybridize with the viruses in our gut. We know, in spite of them saying the BT toxin doesn't last, new studies in Canada show it has been found in the blood of pregnant women and in the fetuses they've given birth to.

A new 2 year feeding study in France showed high levels of cancer in mammals. A similar study had similar results, in Russia at the Academy of Sciences. These are independent studies done by scientists with absolutely no involvement in any business industry interest. They are what we call public scientists.

The UK government asked Hungarian scientist Arpad Putzai, one of the most eminent scientists to do a study on GM foods, way back around 1998 and he did it. He was actually a promoter of genetic engineering, but when he did the study, he found the following result: the rats he had fed had shrunken brains, enlarged pancreases and a collapse of immunity. He went to his director and said if this has happened with three months of feeding rats, what will happen to a lifetime of feeding human beings? He wanted to inform the public. They did, and he went all over BBC immediately.

Then, a call was made from Monsanto the devil to Bill Clinton to Tony Blair to get rid of this top scientist who had left Hungary for freedom. And he said "I had more freedom in Communist Soviet Union, in Hungary, than in corporate ruled England." That freedom is what the US is losing and US citizens are losing as corporations take over our science, our decision-making, our food systems and our seed.

So Proposition 37 is not an insignificant proposition. It is, in a way, a reflection of the larger debate in this election. Will money run it or will the people's democratic votes run it? Will democracy in America be "of the people, by the people, for the people" or is it going to be reduced to "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations?" In which case, you have corporate rule and corporate rule means corporate dictatorship and corporate dictatorship as Mussolini said is Fascism. The convergence of political power with economic power is a very dangerous moment, but it is also a moment that pushes us to create new levels of aspiration and actions for freedom.

Kolhatkar: What would the ripple effect be, if Californians passed Proposition 37? This is the biggest state, the most economically successful state in the union. It is also the ninth largest economy in the world and, as you have said, the US is so far behind other countries. Could there be a ripple effect far beyond California and globally if labeling, were to become law in California?

Shiva: I think there'd be a huge ripple effect - not in the way fear-mongers, the "No to Proposition 37" people are saying. They're saying there will be a $400 cost per family. That's nonsense, labeling has never ever increased cost. You have to just look at what happened in Europe. You just have to look at what happened with other food labeling. So this is totally creating fear, especially among the less privileged, who are already having a difficult time meeting their food bills.

The second thing they're saying is there will be too much of a burden, a segregation of products. This is already an obligation that California has when it exports. Europe requires segregation. You can't mix up GM seeds with non-GM seeds, so you are anyway doing it for your export market. Why don't you then expand it to your citizens? Surely they should be treated at least as equal to citizens elsewhere.

I hope Proposition 37 goes through and I'm throwing all my weight behind it, which is a vote for truth against lies. Washington has actually been held captive by the Monsanto the devils of this country and their lobby groups. The biggest ripple effect of prop 37 passing will be to liberate Washington and we need liberation of Washington to liberate the rest of the world.

I've had to deal with my country of India where Washington dictates to the Prime Minister's office. They now have an agreement called the US Indian Knowledge Agreement in Agriculture. Monsanto the devil sits on the board and the Prime Minister's office tells the regional governments, sign an agreement with Monsanto the devil, hand over your seeds, genetic resources, research, and let them patent everything India's done for five thousand years of farming. We had to do a massive "Bija yatra," or a "seed liberation journey" to get that Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of Rajasthan canceled.

Poor little Nepal, a tiny country bullied by Washington, was told "if you don't accept GMOs and write an agreement with Monsanto the devil, we won't give you aid." Again my colleagues in Nepal had to do a massive mobilization to say no to GMOs and no to Monsanto the devil.

So today the empire is a "GMO empire" because it is a patent empire that collects royalties. The British collected royalties from land and became the power of the world by stealing from peasants, which created the hunger of India and the two million deaths during the great Bengal Famine.

Today the super extractions through royalties on seeds are linked to GMOs. GMOs have no other purpose except to bring royalties to Monsanto the devil. That is why Brazilian farmers have sued Monsanto the devil for $2.2 billion. That is why nearly a quarter million Indian farmers have committed suicide because of the royalties they are paying and the debt they're getting into. The ripple effect is absolutely huge.

Freedom in my view is indivisible and that is why every step we take anywhere in the world matters. For example, the parliamentary committee of India has said there is no role for GMOs in agriculture after the suicides. Our recent technical group appointed by the Supreme Court has said there should be a ten year moratorium on GMOs til we start to do more independent science, to inform the public that most of what is passed as science these days is Monsanto the devil's public relations, because they just literally kill the work, research, the lab of every independent scientist.

They're going after Seralini, there going after Arpad Putzai, and the only reason they've not gotten rid of me is that I got rid of a job I had in 1982. I have no job they can take away from me and that is the reason I've carried on for twenty-five years.

Kolhatkar: You talk about "seed slavery" and I want to ask you about that, because "slavery" is a heavy word. If seeds can be owned then food can be owned which in turn allows these corporations to control life - is that what you mean by "seed slavery?"

Shiva: I mean exactly that. After all, what was slavery when human beings were owned and captured in Africa, brought to cotton plantations in this country? They were owned as property, to be bought and sold. 

Monsanto the devil writes the WTO agreement on intellectual property and Monsanto the devil is on record saying, "we were the patient, the diagnostician, and the physician all in one, we define the problem." And for them the problem was that farmers save seeds. And they offered a solution that it should now be a criminal offense to save seeds. According to them seeds should be an intellectual property and they created this new fictitious law of intellectual property and patents on seeds, as if they were the inventors and creators of life on earth.

When I heard these corporations in 1987 use this language of intellectual property, I said they want a slavery of life on this planet. If I tell a plant, "I have created you and your next generation is my property and I will manipulate you to my will, I will put in toxic genes so that I can sell more toxics; I will put terminator genes so that there is no future seed, it's a sterile seed," this is the ultimate slavery.

The earlier slavery was for one species, some people of the human species. This new slavery is an empire over all life on earth and it is also leading to human slavery. More than a quarter million farmers in India have committed suicide. They became seed slaves. That's why they ended their lives. They couldn't find a way out.

The farmer in Europe who is being chased by new seed laws that these companies are putting in place are being told "you can't have your own seed. If you have your own seed that's a crime. Diversity is a crime. Your own seed freedom is a crime."

This is why we are making a call for "seed freedom" globally. And we have created the Global Citizen's Alliance for Seed Freedom which issued a new report. The report is global, both in the positive steps that citizens are taking everywhere to liberate seeds and fight these corporations, as well in as the new laws and the new implementations they're trying to shape.

If you take it all into account what we really need is something like the abolition movement. It was a handful of people who thought it was wrong that people should own other people. When I started 25 years ago it was a handful of us who thought it was wrong that some companies should decide to declare life as their creation and property and then extract royalties and close our options.

Why are GMOs spreading so much? Because GMOs are connected to patents. Only when GMOs grow will they collect the royalties. That's why all of Latin America grows Round Up Ready soya. All of Brazil grows Round Up Ready soya. All of the farming areas of the mid-west of this country grows GM corn and soya. Two percent of the soya is eaten as food. The myth that GMOs are feeding the world is a big lie. It is feeding the hunger for profits for just five corporations: Monsanto the devil, Dupont, Syngenta, Basf, and Dow.

Kolhatkar: The standard argument is that they can create genetically modified plants that are drought resistant and resistant to all of the temperaments of nature, but in reality, don't these GM seeds often require more chemical intervention, which then Monsanto the devil happily sells to farmers?

Shiva: Well, so far in these 20 years of commercialization of GM crops (and we're not talking about the future we are talking about an experiment of twenty years), there are only two traits that have commercialized on a large scale. One is a family of crops called the BT crops in which a toxin is taken from a soil organism and put into the plant. The claim is that it will control one pest called the boll worm. But that pest has become resistant and new pests have been created. In India 13 times more pesticide is being used on cotton compared to what was being used before.

The second family is the Round Up resistant crops or the herbicide resistant crops. These herbicide resistant crops were supposed to control weeds. Instead, the US has fifteen million hectares of land overtaken by super weeds that can't be controlled by Round Up. Now they are asking farmers to spray Agent Orange that was sprayed in Vietnam.

So it is not the case that GMOs do the work of weed control and pest control. Ecological farming does that much better. The argument that they can engineer climate resilience with a single gene is, again, a false claim. It's an anti-scientific claim. All complex traits like resilience to the environmental stress whether it is climate or a pest are multi-genetic traits. Many genes come into play.

These seeds have been evolved by farmers and nature over millennia. My organization, Navdanya, with its 110 seed banks, saves climate resilient crops because we know that this is what farmers need today: salt tolerant seeds that we can use after cyclones, flood tolerant seeds after flooding, and drought tolerant seeds. All that the companies are doing is stealing and engaging in bio-piracy of what farmers have already bred.
An herbicide tolerant crop means they sell more herbicide. They have said very clearly in conversations I've had with them that "every failure is a success." When Round Up ready 1 fails, they bring in Round Up Ready 2 with two genes of Round Up resistance. When Boll Guard 1 fails with one gene of a BT toxin, they bring in Boll Guard 2 with two genes and they've now carried on up to 8 genes. Every single time they stack up the royalties.

So for them it's a game that will not lose because every failure means more chemicals, every failure means more royalties, every failure means more control. That's why the only thing that can stop them is a people's democratic movement. And that's why Proposition 37 comes back to the center of this discussion.

Kolhatkar: I wonder how you see Americans learning from what you and the farmers in India have done. Here in the United States, although of course we've got a rich culture of small farmers, much of our food system is controlled by big agri-businesses. In the US do you see this more as a consumers' movement rather than a farmer's movement or a hybrid of the two?

Shiva: The small family farm of this country has been destroyed by big agri-business. The United States like India was the land of small farmers. But now there is a huge explosion of small farmers. The organic movement is new agriculture. It's a whole new movement. I saw data showing that the majority of small organic farmers are actually women - urban women moving to do agriculture.

I've built this movement of Navdanya which means nine seeds and we have a farm which is a teaching and research farm and a bio-diversity conservation farm where we are at this moment harvesting 630 varieties of rice. We get people from around the world including a lot of young Americans who want to become farmers or chefs or something in the food system.

This is happening for two reasons: one is that the options are fewer after the financial collapse of 2008. Why is Occupy Wall Street such an important movement in this country? Because the youth recognize that their future is being limited by a Wall Street-driven, Monsanto the devil-driven, Walmart-driven economy.

But the second reason is that those who do have an option to have a job realize how dead these jobs are. They're not fulfilling and people are seeking a deeper meaning in life working with the earth, protecting seeds.
Our report on seed freedom has many contributions from seed savers in this country. So it's a huge movement and this issue of seed freedom and the issue of fighting these giants will also be an issue of the small initiatives.

It will be an issue for children. I see in the future the movement for edible education, the movement of school gardens, being a major political force because when a child has tasted a healthy tomato, and more than that gone through the miracle of having that seed give them one hundred tomatoes, that child can never be brain washed into the idea of scarcity for dependence on Monsanto the devil. That child can never ever be sterilized into thinking bad food is good for you. They will celebrate taste and quality and nutrition and freedom. That is going to be a very important set of players. I'm doing this in India and I believe this needs to be done in the United States.

We always believe that because organic is costly (and it's costly because the subsidies go to the poisons) that therefore it's an option only for the rich. But the point is that there are huge subsidies to make the chemical food, the GMO food, move toward the poor. All we have to do is redirect our tax money. Just like we have the right to know what we eat, we have a right to decide how our tax money will be used for the public good rather than private greed.

Kolhatkar: The economy is inextricably tied to how food is created, bought and sold in today's corporate capitalist driven economy. The Monsanto the devils and Walmarts rely on GMOs because they can own the patents and they can make money that way and the never ending growth model that we're told is the only model for running our economic system assumes that there are never ending resources on this planet, which of course there aren't. What do you see as an alternative to this global economic system that we call capitalism that is in many ways driving both climate change as well as the end of bio-diversity.? Do you back small scale capitalism and small markets or do you back socialist alternatives, etc.?

Shiva: I think we need a far more radical shift to deal with this new mythology of limitless growth. And that shift is taking place. It is taking place, for example, in that a country called Bhutan which said "we're not going to measure GDP or Gross Domestic Product because it measures nothing but the commercialization and commodification of society." If I cut my forest and sell off the timber, I have growth but I have no forest, I have no water.

This is why the Chipko movement, the first movement I was part of, said trees provide water not timber. Change your mind set.

Bhutan shifted to measuring "Gross National Happiness," and not happiness in an empty way, it is happiness and well being. People need to remember that the original root of wealth is well being. Coming back to the real meaning of the term "economy" derived from "oikos" is looking after your home, looking after this planet. Ecology and economy were two sides of the same coin. Ecology was the science, economy was the management. 

Aristotle said economia is the art of living. Chrematistics is the art of money making. We have taken the art of money making which has created the oligarchs and has allowed the stealing of our democracies and the creation of poisoned food, climate change and disappearing diversity - that art of money making is being called the art of living but it is really the end of humanity. It is time to reclaim our humanity, our future, and it is a very exciting moment.

The Government of Bhutan has asked us to help make them 100% organic because as the Prime Minister wrote to me, " I can only see one way of growing happiness and that is growing organic." They have also set up a think tank for every person anywhere in the world who is rethinking the economic paradigm. Ancient wisdoms are resurging again, the ecology movement is taking a new shape. The Women's movement is saying this was never our economy. Feminist economists are saying if you put the well being of other species, the well being of humanity, at the center, you get another economics. Stop measuring money transactions, start measuring the health of our rivers, our forests, our children, our communities. It's not very difficult. Most of the work is being done now. We need the political power to shift the crowd. Proposition 37 is that tiny little test case for many of the other issues that are related to this.

Kolhatkar: Vandana Shiva it's always an honor to speak with you.

Shiva: It's my pleasure and I wish all the strength to the vote on November 6th not just for Proposition 37 but for the larger election because both are about the same thing: Will money rule our lives or will we govern ourselves?

Watch a video of the entire unedited interview at www.uprisingradio.org.

Big Ag Ad Blitz Puts GMO Labeling in Jeopardy

Friday, October 26, 2012 by PRWatch.org

California GMO Labeling Supporters Confront $34 Million Opposition and 13-Point Poll Slide

by Rebekah Wilce

 

California Proposition 37 to label foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is up for a vote on Tuesday, November 6. It enjoyed broad popular support as of September, with a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showing support by 61 percent of registered voters.

But in the two weeks following that poll, support dropped to 48 percent, according to a poll done by Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and the California Business Roundtable.

What explains the 13 point slide?

Multi-Million Dollar Ad Blitz Changes Minds

Between one poll and the next, voters saw the start of what the Los Angeles Times called a "major television advertising blitz by opponents aimed at changing voters' minds on the issue."

How big of an advertising blitz? $41 million in campaign contributions have been made to the "No on 37" campaign, according to the Los Angeles Times. The campaign paid Winner & Mandabach Campaigns, a political campaign management and advertising firm specializing solely in ballot measures, $14.7 million for "TV or cable airtime and production costs" in September.

Mark Bittman writes in a New York Times op-ed, "By some accounts the 'no' advocates are spending $1 million a day."

Follow the Money: "Big 6" GMO Companies Buy Big Ads

Among the campaign's largest funders are the "Big 6" GMO and pesticide corporations: BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical Company, Syngenta, and Monsanto the devil (see the chart below this article). These six corporations dominate the world's seed, pesticide and genetic engineering (GE) industries. Collectively they have contributed more than $20 million to oppose the labeling measure.

The most effective ad run by the opposition campaign, according to "Yes on 37" spokesperson Stacy Malkan, features Henry I. Miller telling voters that Prop 37 "doesn't make sense." It misleads voters by spinning the law's logical labeling exemptions into "arbitrary" "special interest" loopholes that allegedly result in an "illogical" and "ill-conceived" law.

For instance, the ad discusses exemptions for animal products, but currently there are no genetically modified cows, pigs, or chickens on the market.

According to the Earth Island Journal, spinning the law's exemptions into a major issue makes "a snazzy sound bite, . . . no doubt informed by the No campaign’s polling and focus group findings that show this is a wedge issue. But it’s a strawman argument and fundamentally misleading. The article points out "the holes in the loophole argument" one by one.

Who is Henry Miller?

The ad originally listed campaign spokesperson Miller as "M.D., Stanford" and showed Stanford University buildings in the background. The campaign had to pull that version off the air at the request of Stanford University and re-do it because "the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university’s policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Miller is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus. Prior to joining Hoover, Miller worked for 15 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he was an outspoken advocate of agricultural biotechnology, including GMOs. Miller was the founding director of the FDA Office of Biotechnology, from 1989-1994.

What Miller is most notorious for are his unusual public positions. In 2003, Miller penned an op-ed for the New York Times defending DDT and arguing for its resurrection. This prompted a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) response pointing out the estimated "increase in infant deaths that might result from DDT spraying."

Miller was also a founding member scientist of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, a now-defunct, tobacco industry-funded public relations front group run by the APCO Worldwide PR firm that worked to discredit the links between cigarettes and cancer.

Perhaps most outrageously, Miller wrote in a 2011 op-ed for Forbes that some of those exposed to radiation after the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant "could have actually benefitted from it."

So it is unsurprising that Miller penned a Forbes op-ed on GMO labeling this week suggesting that it is the supporters of GMO labeling who are engaged in "no-holds-barred advocacy . . . to disparage farming methods and promulgate fraudulent health claims about the foods we eat."

Behind the Money is the Right to Know

 In these big dollar proposition campaigns, voters in California are often subject to a great deal of misinformation. As CMD has reported, a proposition on the California ballot in June dropped 17 points in the polls and was defeated after a $47 million misleading ad campaign by the tobacco industry.

On election day, voters in California are challenged to sift the wheat from the chaff to decide if they want to join 61 nations in enjoying the right to know if their food contains GMOs.

"No on 37" Campaign Funding

Consumer Choice: As American as a Genetically-Altered Apple Pie

Wednesday, October 10, 2012 by OtherWords
The creation of a new genetically modified apple highlights once again the need for clear labeling of this kind of food.
by Wenonah Hauter

 

Meet the Arctic apple. In the field-trial stage since 2003, this fruit has had bacterial and viral DNA inserted into it — a genetic modification that prevents browning when bruised or sliced. One company, Okanagan Specialty Foods, has been testing these genetically engineered apples in New York and Washington — the country's biggest apple-producing states. Now, they're up for regulatory review by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

If approved, most Arctic apples will be used in fresh-cut apple slice processing and by food service businesses, with some going into juice. But traditional apple growers, including trade organizations such as the U.S. Apple Association and the Northwest Horticulture Council, aren't exactly thrilled. Not only could it hurt traditional growers' market share, but nearby organic and traditional orchards may be contaminated with pollen from these newfangled apples and there could be cross-contamination at the processing level as well.

Even the top sliced-apple company is concerned about the food safety and consumer confidence ramifications of these apples because they could mislead consumers into thinking they're about to bite into a fresh, juicy apple rather than one on the verge of rotting.

Are all of the risks really worth it for an apple that resists a minor aesthetic flaw? Millions of research dollars have sunk into this product so that fast food and processing companies can let sliced apples sit around in plastic bags longer.

And, worst of all — as with all genetically modified foods — these apples won't be labeled. Consumers will have no way to tell that they're eating them. Okanagan claims they'll use an Arctic apple sticker and an indication of its "non-browning trait benefit," but there's no law requiring any kind of labeling. While the European Union has required the labeling of most genetically engineered foods for years, there's no such requirement in the United States.

Right now, the vast majority of processed foods contain genetically modified ingredients, particularly corn, soy, and their derivatives. But in recent years, these crops have steadily crept into the produce aisle. Washington has approved a total of 87 since the 1990s, seven of which the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2011 alone.

With little regulatory oversight and even less independent, long-term scientific study on their impact on human health and the environment, it's no wonder that a majority of consumers would not eat this newfangled food and nearly all — 90 to 95 percent — want genetically modified food to be labeled so they can make informed choices.

In California, more than a million voters have signed to have an initiative on the state's November ballot to mandate labeling. So far, Proposition 37 has 61 percent support from voters despite large food and pesticide companies spending at least $35 million to confuse the public with misinformation.

Proposition 37 and several other statewide mandatory labeling initiatives in the works are about giving the power of information back to consumers and ending the tyranny that large corporations have maintained over our food supply. And, if there's one thing more American than the apple, it's our right to make informed choices — in this case, to decide for ourselves whether or not to serve genetically engineered apples in our pie.