Monsanto IS Evil on a Stick!

13 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

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

One of the most important cases regarding Monsanto and their monopolistic and unethical control of our seed supply, and therefore our food supply, is coming before the SCOTUS next week. This will be a hugely important ruling for food freedom, farm freedom and environmental concerns.

I wanted to share two things with you on this subject, and have two articles that are inextricably intertwined below:

New CFS Report Exposes Devastating Impact of Monsanto Practices on U.S. Farmers

Today, one week before the Supreme Court hears arguments in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and Save our Seeds (SOS) launched our new report, Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers.

The report investigates how the current seed patent regime has led to a radical shift to consolidation and control of global seed supply and how these patents have abetted corporations, such as Monsanto, to sue U.S. farmers for alleged seed patent infringement.

Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers also examines broader socio-economic consequences of the present patent system including links to loss of seed innovation, rising seed prices, reduction of independent scientific inquiry, and environmental issues.

Among the report’s discoveries are several alarming statistics:

  • As of January 2013, Monsanto, alleging seed patent infringement, had filed 144 lawsuits involving 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses in at least 27 different states.
  • Today, three corporations control 53 percent of the global commercial seed market
  • Seed consolidation has led to market control resulting in dramatic increases in the price of seeds. From 1995-2011, the average cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent; for cotton prices spiked 516 percent and corn seed prices are up by 259 percent.

Additionally, Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers reports a precipitous drop in seed diversity that has been cultivated for millennia. As the report notes:  86% of corn, 88% of cotton, and 93% of soybeans farmed in the U.S. are now genetically-engineered (GE) varieties, making the option of farming non-GE crops increasingly difficult.

While agrichemical corporations also claim that their patented seeds are leading to environmental improvements, the report notes that upward of 26 percent more chemicals per acre were used on GE crops than on non-GE crops, according to USDA data.

At the launch of the report via teleconference today, experts from the Center for Food Safety and Save our Seeds were joined by Mr. Vernon Hugh Bowman, the 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer who, next week, will come up against Monsanto in the Supreme Court Case.  When asked about the numerous comparisons being drawn between his case and the story of David and Goliath, Mr. Bowman responded, “I really don’t consider it as David and Goliath. I don’t think of it in those terms. I think of it in terms of right and wrong.”

In December of 2012, the Center for Food Safety and Save Our Seeds submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Mr. Bowman, which supports the right of farmers to re-plant saved seed. Arguments in the case are scheduled for February 19th.

Download the report here: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Seed-Giants_final.pdf 

75-year-old soybean farmer sees Monsanto lawsuit reach U.S. Supreme Court

 

brazil-soybean-field-afp
Topics: 

Who controls the rights to the seeds planted in the ground? A 75-year-old farmer takes the agricultural giant to court to find out

As David versus Goliath battles go it is hard to imagine a more uneven fight than the one about to play out in front of the US supreme court between Vernon Hugh Bowman and Monsanto.

On the one side is Bowman, a single 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer who is still tending the same acres of land as his father before him in rural south-western Indiana. On the other is a gigantic multibillion dollar agricultural business famed for its zealous protection of its commercial rights.

Not that Bowman sees it that way. “I really don’t consider it as David and Goliath. I don’t think of it in those terms. I think of it in terms of right and wrong,” Bowman told The Guardian in an interview. (click here to read the full story)

Food Stamps for Everyone….Sheesh

12 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in Uncategorized

Food Stamp Rolls in America Now Surpass the Population of Spain

February 11, 2013

 

food stamps(AP Image)

(CNSNews.com) – Since taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America, exceeding the population of Spain.

“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity,” said Obama during his first joint session address to Congress on Feb. 24, 2009.

Since then, the number of participants enrolled in food stamps, known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), has risen substantially.

When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110Americans receiving food stamps.  As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896 Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent. (full article here)

USDA Possibly Removing Meat Inspectors

11 Feb 2013 2 Comments

by truthfarmer in food safety, food shortage, USDA Tags: , ,

So today, after covering the canceling of meat inspectors even visiting foreign “approved” meat packing plants, Vilsack held a press conference regarding “sequestration” and putting 6,000 or more USDA meat inspectors on a two to three week furlough unless Congress does what Obama wants with this next fiscal cliff. After canceling meat inspections, which in reality were just once a year visits to plants in foreign countries giving them a once over and stamping them as USDA Approved for a year, they are now going to shut down US meat plants. Nice. That ought to make the economy just wonderful. When the USDA inspected plants do not have a USDA inspector on the floor, the plants are shut down.

Sounds like a great way to get all beef equine burgers into our markets post haste. Also sounds like a good way to bring about a food crises.

Here’s the article:

Sequestration = Possible Meat Inspector Cuts

Northern Ag Network posted on February 11, 2013 09:23 :: 137 Views

by Jerry Hagstrom, DTN Political Correspondent
LAS VEGAS (DTN) — Across-the-board federal budget cuts could force USDA to furlough up to 6,000 meat inspectors for up to two weeks, plunging the meat industry into chaos and raising consumer prices, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a speech to the National Biodiesel Board Thursday.
In wide-ranging comments after his speech on the sequestration and the prospects for a new farm bill, Vilsack said the sequestration — an across-the-board cut in government spending set to go into effect on March 1 if Congress does not change it — would require USDA’s Food and Safety and Inspection Service to “furlough over 6,000 food inspectors for two to three weeks.”
“As soon as you take an inspector off the floor, that plant shuts down,” Vilsack added, noting that removing inspectors even for a short period would affect several hundred thousand workers and would affect the supply of meat and eventually consumer prices.
A USDA spokeswoman said there are about 6,500 federal meat inspectors.
The sequestration, Vilsack said, “is horrible policy,” adding that the potential problem at FSIS “is just a tiny piece of my life.”
“It is really hard to manage the department,” Vilsack said, adding that sequestration will require that the cut be made in six months, which means it is essentially double the percentage required.
Some Republicans have proposed that cuts to the Defense Department should be avoided and the way to do it is to increase domestic cuts, which could make the problem at the Agriculture Department worse. The Obama administration has proposed delaying the cuts and including a tax increase.
Vilsack said he is worried Congress might decide the way to avoid sequestration deficit reduction is to “do away with the direct payments” that crop farmers get whether prices are high or low. The problem with that, he noted, is Congress has been planning to use the $4.9 billion in annual budget authority for the payments to write a new farm bill.
He praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for reintroducing the farm bill the Senate passed last year, but said he believes the Senate Agriculture Committee will have to adjust that bill because it will not satisfy Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the new ranking member.
Vilsack also said he expects House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., “to work their magic,” but that the dairy issue is still unresolved in the House.
He noted that dairy farmers want a program to support them when “milk and feed prices get to the point there is less than a $4 cushion between them,” but there has to be a mechanism that does not reward overproduction.
Vilsack noted that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the proposal last year “socialism” and said “somewhere they have got to figure out how to remove the volatility, create greater stability and not break the bank.”
Vilsack also told the biodiesel producers the farm bill needs a strong energy title and they should also form alliances to pass the “food, farm and jobs bill.” (from this link)
© Copyright 2013 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.

More Good News for Chemical Ag

11 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in Consolidation Tags: , ,

As most of you know, Round Up “the miracle” is causing lots of glyphosphate resistant super weeds. However, the author of this article points out that there is indeed another way to help solve this problem created by the use of this “lovely” herbicide. If we farm as much as we can actually handle without resorting to making agriculture an oligarchial industrial complex, we can actually steward the land and increase productivity and soil health in the process…..Oh for logic and reason to prevail! Never mind, I went off to a daydream.

Just wanted to share this article with you:

Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Superweeds

—By 

Last year’s drought took a big bite out of the two most prodigious US crops, corn and soy. But it apparently didn’t slow down the spread of weeds that have developed resistance to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), used on crops engineered by Monsanto to resist it. More than 70 percent of all the the corn, soy, and cotton grown in the US is now genetically modified to withstand glyphosate.

Back in 2011, such weeds were already spreading fast. “Monsanto’s ‘Superweeds’ Gallop Through Midwest,” declared the headline of a post I wrote then. What’s the word you use when an already-galloping horse speeds up? Because that’s what’s happening. Let’s try this: “Monsanto’s ‘Superweeds’ Stampede Through Midwest.”

That pretty much describes the situation last year, according to a new report from the agribusiness research consultancy Stratus. Since the 2010 growing season, the group has been polling “thousands of US farmers” across 31 states about herbicide resistance. Here’s what they found in the 2012 season:

Superweeds: First they gallop, then they roar. Graph: Stratus

• Nearly half (49 percent) of all US farmers surveyed said they have glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm in 2012, up from 34 percent of farmers in 2011.
• Resistance is still worst in the South. For example, 92 percent of growers in Georgia said they have glyphosate-resistant weeds.
• But the mid-South and Midwest states are catching up. From 2011 to 2012 the acres with resistance almost doubled in Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana.
• It’s spreading at a faster pace each year: Total resistant acres increased by 25 percent in 2011 and 51 percent in 2012.
• And the problem is getting more complicated. More and more farms have at least two resistant species on their farm. In 2010 that was just 12 percent of farms, but two short years later 27 percent had more than one. (full article here)

Regular Power Hour Show Tomorrow 2/11/13

10 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in Radio, Truth Farmer

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you all know that I will be doing my regular monthly slot with Joyce Riley on the Power Hour Monday.

Here is the info:

“The Power Hour with Joyce Riley” is a three-hour nationally syndicated LIVE talk radio show broadcast Monday through Friday 7-10 A.M. Central Standard Time.
LISTEN: live at www.gcnlive.com or www.thepowerhour.com or better yet – please listen live atwww.talkstreamlive.com
Archived Shows: www.gcnlive.com
The Power Hour Weekly Schedule: http://www.thepowerhour.com/schedule.htm
The Power Hour News Section: http://www.thepowerhour.com/news.htm

Alabama: Birmingham and Sylacauga WYEA 1290 am
California: Chico KKXX 104.9 fm
California: Loma Linda, Riverside, Los Angeles LIVE on KCAA 1050 am
California: Redlands KMET “Smart Talk” 1490 am
California: Riverside and San Bernadino 1490 am 2nd hour
California: Santa Cruz KKMC 880
Idaho: Rexburg KUDA 1610 am Epic Broadcasting
Kansas: Liberty and Kansas City KCXL 1140 am
Louisiana: New Orleans 600 am replay from 10:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.
Michigan: Detroit WDRJ 1440 am www.1440wdrj.com
Missouri: Kansas City KCTO 1160 am
Missouri: Liberty KCXL 1140 am
Missouri: Poplar Bluff KLID 1360 am
Montana: Kalispell “The Edge” KGEZ 600 am LIVE
Nevada: Las Vegas KKVV 1060 am Replay from midnight – 3 a.m.
New Mexico: Roswell KCKN 1020 am 2nd hour at 9 p.m. Central Time
New York: Rochester, Brockport WMJQ 105.5 fm/ WASB 1590 am / WRSB 1310 am
Ohio: Columbus and Nelsonville WAIS 770 am 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. 1 hour
South Dakota: Sioux Falls (and parts of Minneapolis, MN) 1710 am
Tennessee: Knoxville and Alcoa “Truth Radio” WBCR 1470 am Replay 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Tennessee: Knoxville WITA 1490 am Replay 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Tennessee: Memphis and Millington WLRM 1380 am
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Tennessee: Nashville WMQM 1300 am Replay Tuesday – Saturday 1:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.
Texas: Austin, Temple and Killeen KTAE 1330 am and LIVE on KTAE.net
Texas: Austin 96.3 fm and 90.1 fm
Washington: Spokane 630 am American Christian Network
Wisconsin: Ladysmith WLDY 1430 am
The Power Hour also available on shortwave worldwide by WWCR!
All times Central Time Zone North America.
7:00 a.m. The Power Hour WWCR 7.490 MHz and 13.845
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Plenty to Follow in Food Safety Regulations

06 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by truthfarmer in FDA, Food Destruction Agency, food safety Tags: , , ,

I’m probably the only advocate of traditional food and farm freedom in this country that is following the overall destruction of our ability to access food of our choice  in connection with the implementation of the GFSI. At this point, I still haven’t made it through the FDA’s two recent rules for the Food Safety Modernization Act. I assure you, with the double attack of the non-governmental GFSI and the implementation of the FSMA, food freedom will be taking a hit like it has never seen before.

I just wanted to share this little snippet to illustrate how the only ones who will actually profit from these programs are the third party certifying and auditing agencies…..And armies of bureaucrats with plethoras of paperwork enhancing their own job security through these programs. Mind you, I am not smacking down the company offering their services here. I know nothing about them. I just thought followers of my blog would like to see the confession of complexity by one involved in the support of businesses trying to live in this Brave New World.

Here’s the excerpt:

Plenty To Follow In Food Safety Regulations – FSMA and GFSI

January 31 2013

Every day food plants across the United States process tons of food for hungry consumers. Everything from milk to ground beef to a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, these plants are at the epicenter of food production.

A look inside the numbers of food processing is quite impressive: 20 billion gallons of milk are produced annually in the United States not only for drinking and dunking cookies, but for being poured over cereal or put in coffee, and in the production of cheese, ice cream and butter. According to the American Meat Institute, 10 billion pounds of ground beef is consumed in the U.S. annually – that’s a whole lot of burgers.

The Sprague Pest Experts get to see behind the curtain of food processing on a daily basis as our highly trained service staff works with clients to protect their facilities from unhealthy pests, as well as assist them in preparing and successfully passing food safety audits. Today, as we go about our duties, the landscape of food safety regulations is changing rapidly. Driven by new Global Food Safety Initiatives (GFSI) standards and the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), food industry professionals have a full plate in front of them. (full article here)

Drones for Our Safety…Yeah, right

01 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in Agenda 21, Conspiracy, Control, Enforcement Tags: , ,

NBC put out this story highlighting a possible new career for people who can’t afford the $20,000 cost of Obamacare for a family of four. Since they want up to 30,000 drones in the sky over the next decade, there is likely to be a boom in the drone flying job sector. Seems like the only area of employment growing in any way is the kind that spies on your neighbors for the Uber-ment.

If you sense a certain tone of discontentment in my writing, you get it. I’m sick to death of being surveilled, monitored and impeded from being able to PRODUCE by our government. It comes down to one thing, and one thing only: The consent of the governed. If we allow this to continue, we are giving our consent.

 Here is the story from NBC, please note that they are intending to “monitor” livestock and catch “poachers” with this “civilian” surveillance.

Anticipating domestic boom, colleges rev up drone piloting programs

“Some of the schools that have permits have been flying unmanned aircrafts for decades; others, like Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, received theirs recently to start programs to train future drone pilots.

Courtesy Randal Franzen

—Randal Franzen went from being unemployed to earning a six-figure salary as a drone flight operator in Afghanistan—

Alex Mirot, an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle who oversees the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Science program there, said this generation of students will pioneer how unmanned aircraft are used domestically, as the use of drones shifts from almost purely military to other applications.

“We make it clear from the beginning that we are civilian-focused,” said Mirot, a former Air Force pilot who remotely piloted Predator and Reaper drones used to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere for four years from a base in Nevada.

“We want them to think about how to apply this military hardware to civilian applications.”

Among the possible applications: Monitoring livestock and oil pipelines, spotting animal poachers, tracking down criminals fleeing crime scenes and delivering packages for UPS and FedEx.

With U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan winding down, drone manufacturers also are eager to find new markets. AeroVironment, a California company that specializes in small, unmanned aircrafts for the military, recently unveiled the Qube, a drone designed for law enforcement surveillance.” (read the entire story here)

USDA Cuts Foreign Meat Plant Inspections

30 Jan 2013 7 Comments

by truthfarmer in Consolidation, Control, Enforcement, USDA, WTO Tags: , ,

While the USDA works to destroy US cattle growers ability to profit from their labor, they make it easier for the general public to buy meat with NO inspection process at all- from foreign countries.

For those who don’t have a solid handle on this issue, I’ll give you a really brief run down. Since the 1950’s the USDA has been operating under the OECD plan of “get big or get out”. The percentage  of US farms relative to the population has dramatically dwindled, and the  complete failure of the USDA and the DOJ to enforce the competition and monopoly laws on the books allows for strong corporate control of the market. And because of reciprocal agreements between the States and the USDA, a person can’t raise their stock and sell directly to the public without USDA interference or oversight.

There are a million more issues related to this lack of access to market (not market access, defined as access to foreign markets), and I’ve covered a lot of them in the past, but for this morning, I would like you to see how concerned with REAL food safety the USDA is. It’s simple. They are not concerned.

While the USDA and the FDA ramp up their State sponsored terrorism on domestic farmers wishing to provide their communities with honest food, they allow fewer inspections of foreign plants and effectively let them “self inspect”.

Nice, isn’t it? You can’t buy a half a steer processed by your neighbor whom you can speak with, but you can buy hamburger with who knows what in it, and the USDA approves.

USDA cuts safety audits on imported meat

Dow Jones Newswires 01/25/2013 @ 2:08pm

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has cut the number of food safety audits it conducts on foreign countries that ship meat to the U.S. as part of an overhaul that the agency says will allow it to focus on the riskiest imports.

USDA officials are now only conducting audits of safety laws in meat-exporting countries at least once every three years instead of on a mandatory annual basis, the agency said Friday, a move that critics say could reduce the safety of imported meat.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), one of those critics, expressed alarm that USDA had already changed its audit system without informing Congress or the public.

The previous system that relied on annual audits was “imperative to ensuring that foreign regulatory systems provide the same level of protection of the public health as our domestic system,” Ms. DeLauro said, but now it seems that USDA “has been implementing and refining these changes for several years.”

The USDA said Friday in a submission to the U.S. Federal Register that it began making the transition “from an annual on-site audit to less frequent on-site audits” in 2009 and “now that the transition is fully in place, [USDA] is announcing it to the public.”

Countries with a history of food safety violations will get closer scrutiny under the new system, the USDA said.

“This performance-based approach allows [USDA] to direct its resources to foreign food regulatory systems that pose a greater risk to public health compared to others,” the USDA said. (read full story here)

 

Believe it or Not, A GMO Labeling Bill in Missouri!

28 Jan 2013 4 Comments

by truthfarmer in GMO's

Maybe….just maybe, we can get some traction for this bill. Wouldn’t that be great?

By
Credit Timothy Valentine/flickr
A ‘No GMOs’ label.

When legislation mandating genetically-modified food labels was proposed in California, Oregon and Washington, I wasn’t necessarily surprised. But the recent news that GMO labeling is being considered in Missouri was a little bit of a shock. The bill, Senate Bill 155, was sponsored by a Democratic senator from St. Louis named Jamilah Nasheed. If passed, it would go into effect on Sept. 1, 2015 and would require genetically-modified meat or fish produced and sold in the Show-Me State to bear labels noting that fact.

“While I understand that food production is an integral Missouri industry, I don’t feel the trend of biotechnology and genetically engineered foods is always apparent to the average citizen,” the Senator said in a news release posted on her Web site. “I am merely asking for clarity in the sale of certain genetically engineered, or GE, foods to Missouri’s consumers.”

In the language of the bill, genetically-modified meat or fish is defined as “any animal or fish whose genetic structure has been altered at the molecular level by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes, including recombinant DNA and RNA techniques, cell fusion, gene deletion or doubling, introduction  of exogenous genetic material, alteration of the position of a gene, or similar procedure.” (read the rest here)

Videos From the Morningland Destruction

28 Jan 2013 12 Comments

by truthfarmer in Uncategorized

I am going to write an article on the events of January 25th, 2013, but at this point,  things are happening so quickly in the destruction of not just Morningland, but our Nation, that I don’t have the time to write it out as quickly as it occurs. I readily admit that video is quicker! In no particular order, the following have been posted on youtube. Please share them far and wide and don’t forget to come back and check for my article on this as well:

Joseph Dixon and Others Interact with Missouri Officials

The Nuremburg Defense is a Popular Mantra

Howell County Sheriff’s Department Helps to Destroy

Howell County Sheriffs Refuse to Answer Gun Confiscation Questions

Here is an interview with Mike Evans of America’s Voice Now radio program the day after the Destruction:

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