Crap- It’s What’s For Dinner

03 Jul 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in food, food safety Tags: , ,

Several years ago there was a fair amount of hoopla about the Japanese making bacon from sewage. It didn’t seem to get off the ground very well. Now they are going for steaks, with some additives to make them more appealing. We’re not very far from Soylent Green….Yet another reason to buy directly from the farmer, not the former!

main_steak

Would you eat a steak made from human sewage? Believe it or not, this concept has already been taste-tested and approved.

If you prefer your steak to be cooked rare, you may want to reconsider that choice after hearing about the latest advancement in food technology to come out of Japan: an edible steak made from human feces, reports Discovery News. (Update: Discovery News is now unsure if the story is real and wondering if they were duped. It reminds us of  this “Yes Men” poop burger hoax.)

Take a moment to let that gag reflex subside. Now consider this: it’s already been taste-tested, approved, and could eventually become a practical solution to sewage treatment. Someday “bowel burgers” may even provide an easy source of protein for the hungry.
The steaks were first envisioned by Japanese researcher Mitsuyuki Ikeda after he was approached by Tokyo Sewage to come up with a solution for the city’s overabundance of sewage mud. Although “eating it” probably wouldn’t have occurred to most people, Ikeda recognized that the mud was chock full with protein-rich bacteria.

After isolating those proteins in the lab, Ikeda’s team then combined them with a reaction enhancer and put them in an exploder. What eventually came out was no filet mignon, but it was edible.
“Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with this,” said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. “It could be quite safe to eat, but I’m sure there’s a yuck factor there.”
To make swallowing the stool steaks a little bit easier, a nutty flavor was added using soy protein, and red food coloring was mixed in too, apparently to make the concoction look more like a juicy, bloody steak. A few brave researchers even took the plunge and taste-tested the product. (Apparently it tastes like regular beef.)
The official composition of the lab-grown steak is 63 percent proteins, 25 percent carbohydrates, 3 percent lipids, and 9 percent minerals. (Which sounds a lot better than 100 percent poop). According to Powell, the idea isn’t really all that much different than eating plants that have been fertilized with manure or other excrement.
The idea could even help to solve the world food crisis. By comparison, researchers have also proposed harvesting insect protein (i.e., “bug burgers”) as one possible way to help combat famine worldwide. Are “bowel burgers” really so much worse? They also take the ethic of recycling to its logical extreme.
Powell did offer one caveat to the future poo’d food revolution, though: because the steaks are made from human feces, there’s always a chance for contamination. If you’re brave enough to eat this, at least make certain that it’s properly cooked (as if you were going to eat one raw!).
When asked if he would ever consider eating one of the poop steaks if it wasn’t cooked, Powell responded matter-of-factly.
“I wouldn’t touch it,” he said.
Source:
www.mnn.com

GMO Damage in Pigs….How about in You?

11 Jun 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in Animal Welfare, Consolidation, Control, Disease, FDA, GMO's Tags: , ,

World Exclusive: Evidence of GMO Harm in Pig Study

Pig stomachs gmo feed

June 11, 2013 in Sustainable Agriculture, by Admin Share with

A groundbreaking new study [1] shows that pigs were harmed by the consumption of feed containing genetically modified (GM) crops.

Press release from Sustainable Pulse (sustainablepulse.com) and GMWatch (gmwatch.org)

GM-fed females had on average a 25% heavier uterus than non-GM-fed females, a possible indicator of disease that requires further investigation. Also, the level of severe inflammation in stomachs was markedly higher in pigs fed on the GM diet. The research results were striking and statistically significant.

Find a clear summary of the study here

Find the full paper here

Lead researcher Dr Judy Carman, adjunct associate professor at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia,[2] said: “Our findings are noteworthy for several reasons. First, we found these results in real on-farm conditions, not in a laboratory, but with the added benefit of strict scientific controls that are not normally present on farms.

Find all the background on this study and on Dr. Judy Carman here: www.gmojudycarman.org

“Second, we used pigs. Pigs with these health problems end up in our food supply. We eat them.

“Third, pigs have a similar digestive system to people, so we need to investigate if people are also getting digestive problems from eating GM crops.

“Fourth, we found these adverse effects when we fed the animals a mixture of crops containing three GM genes and the GM proteins that these genes produce. Yet no food regulator anywhere in the world requires a safety assessment for the possible toxic effects of mixtures. Regulators simply assume that they can’t happen.

“Our results provide clear evidence that regulators need to safety assess GM crops containing mixtures of GM genes, regardless of whether those genes occur in the one GM plant or in a mixture of GM plants eaten in the same meal, even if regulators have already assessed GM plants containing single GM genes in the mixture.”

The new study lends scientific credibility to anecdotal evidence from farmers and veterinarians, who have for some years reported reproductive and digestive problems in pigs fed on a diet containing GM soy and corn.[3]

Iowa-based farmer and crop and livestock advisor Howard Vlieger, one of the coordinators of the study, said: “For as long as GM crops have been in the feed supply, we have seen increasing digestive and reproductive problems in animals. Now it is scientifically documented.

“In my experience, farmers have found increased production costs and escalating antibiotic use when feeding GM crops. In some operations, the livestock death loss is high, and there are unexplained problems including spontaneous abortions, deformities of new-born animals, and an overall listlessness and lack of contentment in the animals.

“In some cases, animals eating GM crops are very aggressive. This is not surprising, given the scale of stomach irritation and inflammation now documented. I have seen no financial benefit to farmers who feed GM crops to their animals.”

Gill Rowlands, a farmer based in Pembrokeshire, Wales who is also a member of the campaign group GM-Free Cymru, said: “This is an animal welfare issue. Responsible farmers and consumers alike do not want animals to suffer. We call for the rapid phase-out of all GMOs from animal feed supplies.”

Claire Robinson of the campaign group GMWatch said: “Several UK supermarkets recently abandoned their GM-free animal feed policies, citing lack of availability of non-GM feed. We call on the public to visit the new citizens’ action website gmoaction.org, where they can quickly and easily send an email to the supermarkets asking them to ensure their suppliers secure certified GM-free animal feed. This will mean placing advance orders for GM-free soy from countries like Brazil.

Study details

The research was conducted by collaborating investigators from two continents and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Organic Systems. The feeding study lasted more than five months, the normal commercial lifespan for a pig, and was conducted in the US. The pigs were slaughtered at the usual slaughter age of over 5 months, after eating the diets for their entire commercial lifespan.

168 newly-weaned pigs in a commercial piggery were fed either a typical diet incorporating GM soy and corn, or else (in the control group) an equivalent non-GM diet. The pigs were reared under identical housing and feeding conditions. They were slaughtered over 5 months later, at the usual slaughter age, after eating the diets for their entire commercial lifespan. They were then autopsied by qualified veterinarians who worked “blind” – they were not informed which pigs were fed on the GM diet and which were from the control group.

The GMO feed mix was a commonly used mix. The GM and non-GM diets contained the same amount of soy and corn, except that the GM diet contained a mixture of three GM genes and their protein products, while the control (non-GM) diet had equivalent non-GM ingredients. Of the three GM proteins in the GM diet, one made a crop resistant to being sprayed with the herbicide Roundup, while two were insecticides.

Contact:

Claire Robinson, GMWatch, UK: claire@gmwatch.org To phone within UK: 0752 753 6923. To phone outside UK: +44 752 753 6923

Dr Judy Carman, Adelaide, Australia

Email: judycarman@ozemail.com.au

Mr Howard Vlieger, Maurice, Iowa

Email: studentofthesoil@mtcnet.net

 

Notes

1. Judy A. Carman, Howard R. Vlieger, Larry J. Ver Steeg, Verlyn E. Sneller, Garth W. Robinson, Catherine A. Clinch-Jones, Julie I. Haynes, John W. Edwards (2013). A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and  GM maize diet. Journal of Organic Systems 8 (1): 38-54. Open access full text: www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf

2. Dr Judy Carman, BSc (Hons) PhD MPH MPHAA; Epidemiologist and Biochemist; Director, Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Adelaide, Australia; Adjunct Associate Professor, Health and the Environment, School of the Environment, Adelaide, Australia

3. For example:

www.responsibletechnology.org/posts/wp-ontent/uploads/2012/04/Soydamage1.pdf

www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Soy_Linked_to_Illnesses_in_Farm_Pigs.php

Farmer interviews in the 2012 film, Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives, directed by Jeffrey Smith

GMO Labeling Must Wait for Canada’s Definition

06 Jun 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in Conspiracy, FDA, food safety, GMO's

The article below indicates to me that “voluntary” labeling of GMO content or lack of such is (as we thought) completely pointless. The fact is that the powers that be don’t believe we have the right to know what is in the food we put in our mouths, or the mouths of our children. It is apparent that the “guerilla labeling” method is the only way to get more people aware of what they are buying for dinner. So let’s do it! If someone is good at making label templates, let’s get them shared all around and whenever we go to a grocery store put 10 labels on boxes of things the GMO shopping guide indicates contain GMO’s. A little effort multiplied can awaken millions. If they won’t let people know, then it’s our duty to let others know. Your thoughts are welcome:

Loblaws orders GMO-free labels removed

Kevin Cox and Ingrid Peritz

Loblaws, Canada’s largest grocery retailer, has ordered its suppliers to remove or cover by Sept. 1 any labels that identify food as being free of genetically modified ingredients.

The move has angered many of the organic food processors that market their breakfast cereals, pastas and other products in the store’s health food department as being free of chemical additives and genetically modified material.

Nature’s Path Foods Inc., a British-Columbia-based company that produces organic breakfast cereals, said some Canadian grocery chains pressed the company to alter the labels on its products.

The section of the label that says the products are made without genetically modified organisms has been blacked out with a felt pen.

Spokesman Arran Stephens said some large grocery chains warned the company that its products would be yanked from shelves if it didn’t remove the reference to genetically modified organisms.

“We’ve sort of been bullied into this. We feel it’s very important that consumers know if their food has been genetically tampered,” Mr. Stephens said, but the company didn’t want to risk cutting production and laying off employees.

Mr. Stephens noted that independent food stores and grocery chains in the United States welcome the GMO-free labels.

Many suppliers are afraid to criticize the grocery chain publicly because they fear losing shelf space.

But they say privately that they are facing major expense to change labels and could lose sales because consumers won’t be able to tell if they are getting non-GMO foods.

In a memo sent to suppliers in late January, Jamie Cooney, director of procurement of health food for Loblaws, said the products of distributors who didn’t remove the non-GMO labels could be removed from the grocery chain’s shelves.

“It is our position that until such time as a government and-or industry-supported definition of genetic modification exists in Canada we will not support product packaging containing non-GMO claims,” the letter, dated Jan. 29, said. No one was available to comment for Loblaws yesterday.

In some Loblaws stores across the country the non-GMO stickers have been blacked out or covered.

The federal government has yet to establish a standard or a labelling policy for genetically modified foods, those that come from plants altered to resist pests or herbicides or to produce greater yields.

Ottawa suffered a setback yesterday in one of its attempts to control labelling of GMO foods when a Quebec judge quashed its bid for an injunction that would stop a beer maker from labelling and advertising its product as “certified GMO-free” by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The agency doesn’t label or test consumer products for GMOs.

Unibroue Inc. has said that a manufacturer’s certificate signed by a government food inspector proved that the CFIA says its product is GMO-free.

Imagine That, the Corporations Write the Laws…Surprised?

31 May 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

This is a very lengthy article….Too lengthy, in my opinion, but perhaps people need the convincing. I just thought that it might be helpful to know that it isn’t just the USDA and the FDA that are in bed with the monopolistic corporations, but even (gasp) the banksters and legislators:

Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills

BY ERIC LIPTON AND BEN PROTESS
Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., left, a Wall Street lobbyist, at a House financial services panel meeting.Christopher Gregory/The New York TimesKenneth E. Bentsen Jr., left, a Wall Street lobbyist, at a House financial services panel meeting.

WASHINGTON — Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

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The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is finding Washington a friendlier place.

The cordial relations now include a growing number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, whose support the banks need if they want to roll back parts of the 2010 financial overhaul, known as Dodd-Frank.

This legislative push is a second front, with Wall Street’s other battle being waged against regulators who are drafting detailed rules allowing them to enforce the law.

And as its lobbying campaign steps up, the financial industry has doubled its already considerable giving to political causes. The lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records performed by MapLight, a nonprofit group.

In recent weeks, Wall Street groups also held fund-raisers for lawmakers who co-sponsored the bills. At one dinner Wednesday night, corporate executives and lobbyists paid up to $2,500 to dine in a private room of a Greek restaurant just blocks from the Capitol with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill championed by Citigroup.

Industry officials acknowledged that they played a role in drafting the legislation, but argued that the practice was common in Washington. Some of the changes, they say, have gained wide support, including from Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. The changes, they added, were in an effort to reach a compromise over the bills, not to undermine Dodd-Frank.

“We will provide input if we see a bill and it is something we have interest in,” said Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., a former lawmaker turned Wall Street lobbyist, who now serves as president of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or Sifma.

The close ties hardly surprise Wall Street critics, who have long warned that the banks — whose small armies of lobbyists include dozens of former Capitol Hill aides — possess outsize influence in Washington.

“The huge machinery of Wall Street information and analysis skews the thinking of Congress,” said Jeff Connaughton, who has been both a lobbyist and Congressional staff member.

Lawmakers who supported the industry-backed bills said they did so because the effort was in the public interest. Yet some agreed that the relationship with corporate groups was at times uncomfortable.

“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes, a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

The passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which took aim at culprits of the financial crisis like lax mortgage lending and the $700 trillion derivatives market, ushered in a new phase of Wall Street lobbying. Over the last three years, bank lobbyists have blitzed the regulatory agencies writing rules under Dodd-Frank, chipping away at some regulations.

But the industry lobbyists also realized that Congress can play a critical role in the campaign to mute Dodd-Frank.

The House Financial Services Committee has been a natural target. Not only is it controlled by Republicans, who had opposed Dodd-Frank, but freshmen lawmakers are often appointed to the unusually large committee because it is seen as a helpful base from which they can raise campaign funds.

For Wall Street, the committee is a place to push back against Dodd-Frank. When banks and other corporations, for example, feared that regulators would demand new scrutiny of derivatives trades, they appealed to the committee. At the time, regulators were completing Dodd-Frank’s overhaul of derivatives, contracts that allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. Derivatives had pushed the insurance giant American International Group to the brink of collapse in 2008. The question was whether regulators would exempt certain in-house derivatives trades between affiliates of big banks.

As the House committee was drafting a bill that would force regulators to exempt many such trades, corporate lawyers like Michael Bopp weighed in with their suggested changes, according to e-mails reviewed by The Times. At one point, when a House aide sent a potential compromise to Mr. Bopp, he replied with additional tweaks.

In an interview, Mr. Bopp explained that he drafted the proposal at the request of Congressional aides, who expressed broad support for the change. The proposal, he explained, was a “compromise” that was actually designed to “limit the scope” of the exemption.

“Everyone on the Hill wanted this bill, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t subject to abuse,” said Mr. Bopp, a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn who was representing a coalition of nonfinancial corporations that use derivatives to hedge their risk.

Ultimately, the committee inserted every word of Mr. Bopp’s suggestion into a 2012 version of the bill that passed the House, save for a slight change in phrasing.A later iteration of the bill, passed by the House committee earlier this month, also included some of the same wording.

And when federal regulators in April released a rule governing such trades, it was significantly less demanding than the industry had feared, a decision that the industry partly attributed to pressure stemming from Capitol Hill.

Citigroup and other major banks used a similar approach on another derivatives bill. Under Dodd-Frank, banks must push some derivatives trading into separate units that are not backed by the government’s insurance fund. The goal was to isolate this risky trading.

The provision exempted many derivatives from the requirement, but some Republicans proposed striking the so-called push out provision altogether. After objections were raised about the Republican plan, Citigroup lobbyists sent around the bank’s own compromise proposal that simply exempted a wider array of derivatives. That recommendation, put forth in late 2011, was largely part of the bill approved by the House committee on May 7 and is now pending before both the Senate and the House.

Citigroup executives said the change they advocated was good for the financial system, not just the bank.

“This view is shared not just by the industry but from leaders such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,” said Molly Millerwise Meiners, a Citigroup spokeswoman.

Industry executives said that the changes — which were drafted in consultation with other major industry banks — will make the financial system more secure, as the derivatives trading that takes place inside the bank is subject to much greater scrutiny.

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, was among the few Democrats opposing the change, echoing the concerns of consumer groups.

“The bill restores the public subsidy to exotic Wall Street activities,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit group.

But most of the Democrats on the committee, along with 31 Republicans, came to the industry’s defense, including the seven freshmen Democrats — most of whom have started to receive donations this year from political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other financial institutions, records show.

Six days after the vote, several freshmen Democrats were in New York to meet with bank executives, a tour organized by Representative Joe Crowley, who helps lead the House Democrats’ fund-raising committee. The trip was planned before the votes, and was not a fund-raiser, but it gave the lawmakers a chance to meet with Wall Street’s elite.

In addition to a tour of Goldman’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, and a meeting with Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, the lawmakers went toJPMorgan’s Park Avenue office. There, they chatted with Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief, about Dodd-Frank and immigration reform.

The bank chief also delivered something of a pep talk.

“America has the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets in the world,” he said. “Washington has been dealt a good hand.”

Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Ben Protess from New York.

The Outsourcing Takes a New Turn

31 May 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in food safety

Believe it or not, there is a fairly large move to bring the US into the position of purely importing all food. If you still eat pork, might I suggest that there is no better reason to source it from a small local producer than Smithfield, the biggest pork producing corporation in the US, being purchased by the Chinese. Here’s an article about it:

Shuanghui buying Smithfield Foods for about $4.72B

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. has agreed to buy Smithfield Foods Inc. for approximately $4.72 billion in a deal that will take the world’s biggest pork producer private.

Hong Kong-based Shuanghui owns a variety of global businesses that include food, logistics and flavoring products and is China’s largest meat processing enterprise. Smithfield owns brands such as Armour, Farmland and its namesake.

Shareholders of Smithfield will receive $34 per share under terms of the deal announced Wednesday — a 31 percent premium to the Smithfield, Va., company’s closing stock price of $25.97 on Tuesday.

Both companies’ boards have unanimously approved the transaction, which still needs approval from Smithfield’s shareholders. The transaction may also be subject to review by the U.S.’s Committee on Foreign Investment.

The companies put the deal’s total value at about $7.1 billion, including debt. Smithfield Foods has about 138.8 million outstanding shares, according to FactSet. Smithfield’s stock will no longer be publicly traded once the deal closes.

Its shares surged $7.23, or 27.8 percent, to $33.20 in premarket trading Wednesday.

Shuanghui has 13 facilities that produce more than 2.7 million tons of meat per year. Under the agreement, there will be no closures at Smithfield’s facilities and locations, including its Smithfield, Va., headquarters, the companies said.

Smithfield’s existing management team will remain in place and Shuanghui also will honor the collective bargaining agreements in place with Smithfield workers. The company has about 46,000 employees.

In a news release on Wednesday, Smithfield CEO Larry Pope called the move a “great transaction for all Smithfield stakeholders, as well as for American farmers and U.S. agriculture.”

In recent months, Smithfield’s second-largest shareholder, Continental Grain Co., has been pushing Smithfield to consider splitting itself up, saying it was time for the company to “get serious about creating shareholder value.” Following a March letter from Continental Grain, Smithfield said it would review the suggestions “in due course.” Representatives from Continental Grain did not immediate provide comment regarding Wednesday’s news.

In its most recent quarter, in March reported its net income rose more than 3 percent, helped by gains in hog production, its international business and its packaged meats such as deli meats, bacon, sausage, and hot dogs — a large growth area for the company.

Still pork producers like Smithfield have been caught in a tug of war with consumers. The company needs to raise prices to offset rising commodity costs, namely the corn it uses for feed. But consumers are still extremely sensitive to price changes in the current economy. By raising prices, Smithfield risks cutting into its sales should consumers cut back or buy cheaper meats, such as chicken.

Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/22444702/shuanghui-buying-smithfield-foods-for-about-472b#ixzz2Us5nOxUL

Trade Agreement with Europe May Force Them Into GMO’s

31 May 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in Consolidation, Control, GMO's Tags: , , , , ,

As I’ve said entirely too many times, the focus of the “free trade” agreements is to bring the entire globe under similar rule and to make us all equally poor. Europeans are now getting a bit miffed at this harmonization and standardization. But I’ve been hacked off about it for years!

At any rate, the new agreement, when finalized, will allow GMO’s without current impediments into the EU. Here is an article about it:

At the end of June, the European Union and the US will officially launch negotiations for a new free trade agreement known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The plan is to create the world’s largest free trade area, ‘protect’ investment and harmonize regulation. While appealing to big business, the trade treaty poses a serious threat for citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, as it could weaken labour, social, environmental and consumer protection standards. One of the greatest risks includes US negotiators using the trade deal to push for the EU to open its plates and fields up to GM crops.

Everything is on the table

The negotiation agenda is very broad. According to theleaked EU draft mandate it is likely to include “goods and services as well as rules on trade and investment related issues with particular focus on removing unnecessary regulatory barriers”, with the aim of promoting “the untapped potential of a truly transatlantic market place”. Basically, this means tackling what the Office of the United States Trade Representative understands as “technical barriers for trade”, among them EU restrictions on GMOs. (see pp. 61).

One of the core part of the negotiations is that both the EU and US should recognize their respective rules and regulations, which in practice could reduce regulation to the lowest common denominator. The official language talks of “mutual recognition” of standards or so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. However, for the EU, that could mean accepting US standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower than the EU’s.

US officials state it quite clearly every time they have the opportunity: all so-called barriers to trade, including highly controversial regulations such as those protecting agriculture, food or data privacy are in their sights. Even the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, made it clear that any agreement must also reduce EU restrictions on genetically modified crops, chlorinated chickens and hormone-treated beef.

A unique opportunity for big business

The negotiations are so broad that groups lobbying on the subject range from Toyota and General Motors to thepharmaceutical industry and IBM; not to mention the Chamber of Commerce of the US, one of the most powerful corporate lobby groups in the US. Indeed, Business Europe, the main organization representing employers in Europe, launched their own strategy on an EU-US economic and trade partnershipin early 2012, and their suggestions have been widely included in the draft EU mandate. Regarding agriculture, their demands include an “ambitious liberalisation of agricultural trade barriers with as few exceptions as possible”. Similarly, food lobby group Food and Drink Europe, representing the largest food companies (Unilever, Kraft, Nestlé, etc.), welcomed the negotiations, one of their key demands being the facilitation of the low level presence of unapproved genetically modified crops. This is a long-standing industry agenda also supported by feed and grain trading giants including Cargill, Bunge, ADM, and the big farmers’ lobby COPA-COGECA. Meanwhile, the biotech industry on both sides of the Atlantic offers its “support and assistance as the EU and the US government look to enhance their trade relationship”.

No doubt this trade deal is an unique opportunity to achieve through closed and non-transparent negotiations what hasn’t been possible so far in a transparent and democratic way. Tactics used to convince Europe to introduce GMOs have even included involving US diplomacy, as revealed by a recent report from Food and Water Europe. The TTIP offers the perfect vehicle to bypass overwhelming opposition to GMOs by EU citizens, as confirmed in every European opinion poll.

According to a professional lobbyist, “EU-US trade negotiations will offer many US firms a second chance to get their interests implemented effectively in Europe. Thanks to this process numerous sectors that have been fighting for change for decades could see their fortunes turn around within a short period of time.” And of course, “US seed companies that for a decade have been struggling to break the deadlock over the authorization for the cultivation of their [GM] seeds now will be presented with the ultimate opportunity to change the entire process to suit their needs.”

Time to raise citizens’ voices – take action

The European Parliament will vote 23rd of May on a resolution over the EU mandate for the negotiation of the TTIP. Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe have launched a joint campaign, Stop the Crop, to prevent the introduction of more GMOs into Europe’s food and farming. We ask you to tell MEPs that EU citizens won’t accept the introduction of GMOs through the back door. Public concerns must be debated openly and transparently!

NOTE: The European Parliament already voted. You can read about the results here

Next steps

After the European Parliament vote, the European Council is expected to endorse the EU mandate to negotiate the TTIP in the Foreign Affairs Council dedicated to Trade on the 18th June. The negotiations could be formally launched on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland by mid June, and are intended to be finalised by the autumn of 2014.

Don’t Hold Your Breath – Monsanto May Be in Trouble

30 May 2013 6 Comments

by truthfarmer in Consolidation, FDA, food, food safety, GMO's, USDA, WTO

Knowing how Monsanto controls the “regulatory” agencies at the Federal level, I deeply doubt that anything will come of this. Also, since Senator Roy Blunt got the Monsanto Protection Act passed, there may be little that can be legally done against one of the most evil corporations on the face of the planet. Nonetheless, here is a story that we should be making a ruckus about:

Monsanto Panics as Oregon GM Wheat Scandal Spreads Worldwide

GM Wheat

May 30, 2013 in Sustainable Agriculture, by AdminShare with

USDA INVESTIGATING DETECTION OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED (GE) GLYPHOSATE-RESISTANT WHEAT IN OREGON

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced Wednesday that test results of plant samples from an Oregon farm indicate the presence of genetically engineered (GE) glyphosate-resistant wheat plants. Further testing by USDA laboratories indicates the presence of the same GE glyphosate-resistant wheat variety that Monsanto was authorized to field test in 16 states from 1998 to 2005. APHIS launched a formal investigation after being notified by an Oregon State University scientist that initial tests of wheat samples from an Oregon farm indicated the possible presence of GE glyphosate-resistant wheat plants. There are no GE wheat varieties approved for sale or in commercial production in the United States or elsewhere at this time.

As a result of the USDA announcement Japanese authorities have canceled a tender offer to buy wheat from the US and other governments worldwide have threatened to stop all US wheat imports.

The EU Commission has asked the United States how to test for unapproved GM Wheat, a spokesman said, adding that incoming shipments would be tested and blocked if they contained the strain.

The detection of this wheat variety does not pose a food safety concern. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completed a voluntary consultation on the safety of food and feed derived from this GE glyphosate-resistant wheat variety in 2004. For the consultation, the developer provided information to FDA to support the safety of this wheat variety. FDA completed the voluntary consultation with no further questions concerning the safety of grain and forage derived from this wheat, meaning that this variety is as safe as non-GE wheat currently on the market.“We are taking this situation very seriously and have launched a formal investigation,” said Michael Firko, Acting Deputy Administrator for APHIS’ Biotechnology Regulatory Services, “Our first priority is to as quickly as possible determine the circumstances and extent of the situation and how it happened. We are collaborating with state, industry, and trading partners on this situation and are committed to providing timely information about our findings. This situation is unacceptable and USDA will put all necessary resources towards this investigation.”

The Plant Protection Act (PPA) provides for substantial penalties for serious infractions. Should APHIS determine that this situation was the result of a violation of the PPA, APHIS has the authority to seek penalties for such a violation including civil penalties up to $1,000,000 and has the authority to refer the matter for criminal prosecution, if appropriate.

APHIS, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ FDA work together to regulate the safe use of organisms derived from modern biotechnology. APHIS regulates the introduction (meaning the importation, interstate movement, and environmental release/field testing) of certain GE organisms that may pose a risk to plant health. EPA regulates pesticides, including plants with plant-incorporated protectants (pesticides intended to be produced and used in a living plant), to ensure public safety. EPA also sets limits on pesticide residues on food and animal feed. FDA has primary responsibility for ensuring the safety of human food and animal feed, as well as safety of all plant-derived foods and feeds. (article source)

Yet Another Perversion

28 May 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in food, GMO's Tags: , , ,

It is only a matter of time before they destroy everything good under the sun.

Del Monte, one of the world's largest growers and distributors of the popular tropical pineapple fruit, has developed a genetically modified pineapple that's currently being grown in Costa Rica, one of the top pineapple-producing countries. It has just received approval by the USDA for eventual sale in the U.S.Called "Rosé", representatives for Del Monte say the GMO fruit is still in a testing phase: "The USDA’s decision does not mean that Rosé is in commercial distribution; it is in a testing phase. Del Monte intends to continue to test Rosé and will communicate more details when appropriate,” Dennis Christou, vice president of marketing in North America for Del Monte said in a statement, adding that, “Del Monte Fresh Produce has a very active research and development program designed to explore new varieties and new agricultural techniques. The results of these research projects may or may not lead to commercialization depending on many factors including regulatory approvals by the relevant governmental authorities where and when applicable.”According to the website, The Packer, Del Monte submitted its requests for approval from the USDA's APHIS division (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) in July of 2012, and the agency quietly gave its approval of Rosé in January of this year, but a formal public response was only made in late April.Del Monte's request for approval describes the GMO Rosé variety as having "rose-colored flesh", which the company says comes from the addition of genes from "edible plant species, pineapple and tangerine" genetically modified to change the color of the pineapple.A "food safety consultation" must be completed with the FDA before the pineapples can be imported to the U.S. The Packer reports that as of April 26th, the agency's list of approved consultations did not show any results connected with Del Monte's Rosé.http://www.naturallysavvy.com/natural-and-organic/del-monte-s-gmo-pineapple-approved-in-the-u-s

Del Monte, one of the world’s largest growers and distributors of the popular tropical pineapple fruit, has developed a genetically modified pineapple that’s currently being grown in Costa Rica, one of the top pineapple-producing countries. It has just received approval by the USDA for eventual sale in the U.S.

Called “Rosé”, representatives for Del Monte say the GMO fruit is still in a testing phase: “The USDA’s decision does not mean that Rosé is in commercial distribution; it is in a testing phase. Del Monte intends to continue to test Rosé and will communicate more details when appropriate,” Dennis Christou, vice president of marketing in North America for Del Monte said in a statement, adding that, “Del Monte Fresh Produce has a very active research and development program designed to explore new varieties and new agricultural techniques. The results of these research projects may or may not lead to commercialization depending on many factors including regulatory approvals by the relevant governmental authorities where and when applicable.”

According to the website, The Packer, Del Monte submitted its requests for approval from the USDA’s APHIS division (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) in July of 2012, and the agency quietly gave its approval of Rosé in January of this year, but a formal public response was only made in late April.

Del Monte’s request for approval describes the GMO Rosé variety as having “rose-colored flesh”, which the company says comes from the addition of genes from “edible plant species, pineapple and tangerine” genetically modified to change the color of the pineapple.

A “food safety consultation” must be completed with the FDA before the pineapples can be imported to the U.S. The Packer reports that as of April 26th, the agency’s list of approved consultations did not show any results connected with Del Monte’s Rosé.

http://www.naturallysavvy.com/natural-and-organic/del-monte-s-gmo-pineapple-approved-in-the-u-s

An Honest Scientist!

20 May 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in Consolidation, Conspiracy, Control, farm loss, GMO's

This is heartening. The biggest problem with science in our part of the world is that those paying for the studies are the ones that determine the findings. This man has done an about face on what, in my opinion, is the biggest danger to humanity outside of a nuclear holocaust. Please read this and share.

 

Former Pro-GMO Scientist Speaks Out On The Real Dangers of Genetically Engineered Food

May 6, 2013 by THIERRY VRAIN
I retired 10 years ago after a long career as a research scientist for Agriculture Canada. When I was on the payroll, I was the designated scientist of my institute to address public groups and reassure them that genetically engineered crops and foods were safe. There is, however, a growing body of scientific research – done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats

I don’t know if I was passionate about it but I was knowledgeable. I defended the side of technological advance, of science and progress.

I have in the last 10 years changed my position. I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.

I refute the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat.

There are a number of scientific studies that have been done for Monsanto by universities in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Most of these studies are concerned with the field performance of the engineered crops, and of course they find GMOs safe for the environment and therefore safe to eat.

Individuals should be encouraged to make their decisions on food safety based on scientific evidence and personal choice, not on emotion or the personal opinions of others.
We should all take these studies seriously and demand that government agencies replicate them rather than rely on studies paid for by the biotech companies.

The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety? Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.

There are no long-term feeding studies performed in these countries to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe. All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely.

These studies show that proteins produced by engineered plants are different than what they should be. Inserting a gene in a genome using this technology can and does result in damaged proteins. The scientific literature is full of studies showing that engineered corn and soya contain toxic or allergenic proteins.

Genetic engineering is 40 years old. It is based on the naive understanding of the genome based on the One Gene – one protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein. The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong.

The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding. Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins. Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic.

I have drafted a reply to Paul Horgen’s letter to the Comox Valley Environmental Council. It is my wish that it goes viral as to educate as many people as possible rapidly. Any and all social media is fine by me. This can also be used as a briefing note for the councilors of AVICC or anywhere else. Thank you for your help. [Original source with replies from Dr. Paul Horgen]

Thierry Vrain
Innisfree Farm

I am turning you towards a recent compilation (June 2012) of over 500 government reports and scientific articles published in peer reviewed Journals, some of them with the highest recognition in the world. Like The Lancet in the medical field, or Advances in Food and Nutrition Research, or Biotechnology, or Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, European Journal of Histochemistry, Journal of Proteome Research, etc … This compilation was made by a genetic engineer in London, and an investigative journalist who summarized the gist of the publications for the lay public.

GMO Myths and Truths – an evidence based examination of the claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified crops. A report of 120 pages, it can be downloaded for free from Earth Open Source. “GMO Myths and Truths” disputes the claims of the Biotech industry that GM crops yield better and more nutritious food, that they save on the use of pesticides, have no environmental impact whatsoever and are perfectly safe to eat. Genetic pollution is so prevalent in North and South America where GM crops are grown that the fields of conventional and organic grower are regularly contaminated with engineered pollen and losing certification. The canola and flax export market from Canada to Europe (a few hundreds of millions of dollars) were recently lost because of genetic pollution. Did I mention superweeds, when RoundUp crops pass their genes on to RoundUp Resistant weeds. Apparently over 50% of fields in the USA are now infested and the growers have to go back to use other toxic herbicides such as 2-4 D. Many areas of Ontario and Alberta are also infested. The transgenes are also transferred to soil bacteria. A chinese study published last year shows that an ampicillin resistance transgene was transferred from local engineered crops to soil bacteria, that eventually found their way into the rivers. The transgenes are also transferred to humans. Volunteers who ate engineered soybeans had undigested DNA in their intestine and their bacterial flora was expressing the soybean transgenes in the form of antibiotic resistance. This is genetic pollution to the extreme, particularly when antibiotic resistance is fast becoming a serious global health risk. I can only assume the American Medical Association will soon recognize its poorly informed judgement.

In 2009 the American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium of GM foods, safety testing and labeling. Their review of the available literature at the time noted that animals show serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. Monsanto writes “There is no need to test the safety of GM foods”. So long as the engineered protein is safe, foods from GM crops are substantially equivalent and they cannot pose any health risks.” The US Food and Drug Administration waived all levels of safety testing in 1996 before approving the commercialization of these crops. Nothing more than voluntary research is necessary, and the FDA does not even want to see the results. And there is certainly no need to publish any of it. If you remember 1996, the year that the first crops were commercialized, the research scientists of the US FDA all predicted that transgenic crops would have unpredictable hard to detect side effects, allergens, toxins, nutritional effects, new diseases. That was published in 2004 in Biotechnology if you recall seeing it.

I know well that Canada does not perform long term feeding studies as they do in Europe. The only study I am aware of from Canada is from the Sherbrooke Hospital in 2011, when doctors found that 93% of pregnant women and 82% of the fetuses tested had the protein pesticide in their blood. This is a protein recognized in its many forms as mildly to severely allergenic. There is no information on the role played by rogue proteins created by the process of inserting transgenes in the middle of a genome. But there is a lot of long term feeding studies reporting serious health problems in mice and rats. The results of the first long term feeding studies of lab rats reported last year in Food and Chemical Toxicology show that they developed breast cancer in mid life and showed kidney and liver damage. The current statistic I read is that North Americans are eating 193 lbs of GMO food on average annually. That includes the children I assume, not that I would use that as a scare tactic. But obviously I wrote at length because I think there is cause for alarm and it is my duty to educate the public.

One argument I hear repeatedly is that nobody has been sick or died after a meal (or a trillion meals since 1996) of GM food. Nobody gets ill from smoking a pack of cigarette either. But it sure adds up, and we did not know that in the 1950s before we started our wave of epidemics of cancer. Except this time it is not about a bit of smoke, it’s the whole food system that is of concern. The corporate interest must be subordinated to the public interest, and the policy of substantial equivalence must be scrapped as it is clearly untrue.

Thierry Vrain, Former research scientist for Agriculture Canada and now promoting awareness of the dangers of genetically modified foods. (link to article source)

Suing Monsatan (Monsanto)

20 May 2013 5 Comments

by truthfarmer in Control, Disease, food safety Tags: , , , ,

I am hoping this goes somewhere and Monsanto is constrained further in yet another country. If this suit is successful, it looks like the US may end up being one of the few that grants Monsanto the ability to continue to destroy life with impunity. One can hope!!

 

Go home Monsanto, you're drunk! - 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 BillionLaunching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars).

The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges.

The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest.

The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but Monsanto seeks to collect massive royalties and put an end to the practice. Why? Because Monsanto owns the very patent to the genetically modified seed, and is charging the farmers not only for the original crops, but the later harvests as well. Eventually, the royalties compound and many farmers begin to struggle with even keeping their farm afloat. It is for this reason that India slammed Monsanto with groundbreaking ‘biopiracy’ charges in an effort to stop Monsanto from ‘patenting life’.

Jane Berwanger, a lawyer for the farmers who went on record regarding the case, told the Associted Press:

“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production.”

The findings echo what thousands of farmers have experienced in particularly poor nations, where many of the farmers are unable to stand up to Monsanto. Back in 2008, the Daily Mail covered what is known as the ‘GM Genocide’, which is responsible for taking the lives of over 17,683 Indian farmers in 2009 alone. After finding that their harvests were failing and they started to enter economic turmoil, the farmers began ending their own lives — oftentimes drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto provided them with.

As the information continues to surface on Monsanto’s crimes, further lawsuits will begin to take effect. After it was ousted in January that Monsanto was running illegal ‘slave-like’ working rings, more individuals became aware of just how seriously Monsanto seems to disregard their workers — so why would they care for the health of their consumers? In April 2012, another group of farmers sued Monsanto for ‘knowingly poisoning’ workers and causing ‘devastating birth defects’.

Will endless lawsuits from millions of seriously affected individuals be the end of Monsanto?– See more at: http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2013/03/5-million-farmers-sue-monsanto-for-7-billion.html#sthash.JYQotKgm.dpuf

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