Written by September 24, 2010 C-SPAN
Posts in category Farming
GM sugar beet scandal leads to lawsuit against USDA
(NaturalNews) Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White from California’s Northern District Court in San Francisco ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) approval of genetically-modified (GM) sugar beets was unlawful, and that no further plantings were permitted to take place until a proper safety assessment is conducted. Several groups have announced, however, that they are filing a lawsuit against the USDA for violating the court ruling by permitting GM seed producers like Monsanto Co. to plant them anyway.
According to a recent Reuters report, the USDA decided to begin issuing permits to GM sugar beet producers, allowing them to plant the “Frankencrops” as long as they do not flower. But the Center for Food Safety and the Sierra Club, two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, allege that this decision not only threatens to contaminate nearby fields, but violates the court ruling as well.
Roughly 50 percent of U.S. sugar production currently comes from GM sugar beets. However according to the plaintiffs, the court ruling effectively banned all future plantings of GM sugar beets, allowing only those currently growing to be harvested. After harvest, the seeds must be culled and no longer used.
US mulls approval of GM salmon
US authorities have begun to consider approval for the first time the sale of genetically engineered salmon, a move that some say could open the door to more transgenic animals on American dinner tables.
A US Food and Drug Administration panel has set a hearing for September 19-20 to consider a proposal by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies for production and sale of a new Atlantic salmon with a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon that allows it to grow faster.
The company said the genetic change allows the fish to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon but that in all other respects, its AquAdvantage salmon “are identical to other Atlantic salmon.”
Why is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? The GMO Assault On Africa
Why do you bring your mistakes here?
Kofi Annan has joined with President Obama, Monsanto, AGRA, and the Gates foundation to promote and execute food aid that replaces bags of wheat, rice and corn (agricultural dumping) with bags of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered seeds. The end result will be to starve people in Africa and feed corporations in the US and Europe.
Kofi Annan and farmers
“Under the guise of “sustainability” the [Gates] Foundation has been spearheading a multi-billion dollar effort to transform Africa into a GMO-friendly continent. The public relations flagship for this effort is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a massive Green Revolution project. Up to now AGRA spokespeople have been slippery, and frankly, contradictory about their stance on GMOs.
Russia’s seed bank under threat
One of the biggest and most important seed banks in the world is at risk of being replaced by a private housing development.
The facility near the Russian city of St Petersburg houses thousands of varieties of plants, not found anywhere else in the world.
Costco Takes Action After Abuse Of Veal Calves Brought To Their Attention
August 31, 2010 KONG TV News
High Risk Eggs – Dangers of Caged Hens Exposed
With more than half a billion eggs recalled and nearly 1,500 people sickened by Salmonella, The Humane Society of the United States is calling for a change in the way most eggs are produced.
Control Of Food Supply To Be Handed Over To Department Of Homeland Security
The words “homeland security” are found 41 times in the text of the bill S. 510, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act. Unprecedented powers over food are set to be handed over to Homeland Security if the bill is not stopped.
The bill opens opens the door to even more federal control over the everyday lives of American citizens. Since they are already engaging in organic raw milk raids without the increased powers S. 510, the question is going to be how many more guns-drawn raids are we to expect after the bill becomes law? It gets worse. Not only does the bill grant the FDA more power, Michael R. Taylor was named deputy commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2010. Michael R. Taylor also worked for Monsanto, was a lobbyist for them, according to Wikipedia. And all of this activity is happening at a time when a flourishing self-sufficiency movement is taking hold in this country, at a time when demand for fresh, local, and organic food is at an all time high.
Prison Farms Close as Get-Tough Crime Initiative Moves Ahead
The battle may be lost, but the war is not over as far as Dianne Dowling is concerned.
About 18 months ago, Dowling and the group Save Our Prison Farms embarked on a national campaign to keep Canada’s six prison farms from being phased out.
That campaign, which was backed by writer Margaret Atwood, culminated with two days of major protests at Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario, when hundreds of demonstrators showed up to protest the removal of 300 cattle from the century-old prison farm.
A peaceful blockade by protesters prevented cattle trucks from entering the institution on Sunday, Aug. 8. But after 24 arrests and a massive police presence, the cattle were successfully shipped out the following day and sent for auction.
Aside from an abattoir at Pittsburgh Institution in Kingston which will continue operating, Canada’s prison farms are now all but closed. The government said the farms were losing $4 million annually, and plans to replace them with programs it says are more effective.
Cattle ‘cloned from dead animals’
Some of the cattle cloned to boost food production in the US have been created from the cells of dead animals, according to a US cloning company.
Farmers say it is being done because it is only possible to tell that the animal’s meat is of exceptionally high quality by inspecting its carcass.
US scientists are using a variety of techniques to assess which animals have exceptional qualities.
These attributes include meat quality, productivity or longevity.
These exceptional animals are cloned to be used as breeding stock, with the aim of raising the quality of herds on beef, dairy and pig farms in the US.
There is a long tradition of resurrecting dead animals for cloning – Dolly the sheep being a case in point.
The head of the leading US animal cloning company has said that European farmers will fall behind the rest of the world unless they are allowed to use such techniques to improve the productivity of their livestock.
The aim of livestock cloning is to clone the best animals to produce the best beef.
But some cattle farmers believe it is impossible to pick the best quality animals until their meat has been properly analysed.
That is why there are cloned bulls here that have been produced from the cells taken from the carcasses of dead animals.
Brady Hicks of the JR Simplot company in Idaho said his organisation was among many that had tried out the technique successfully.
“The animals are hanging on a rail ready to go to the meat counter,” he told BBC News.
“We identify carcasses that have certain carcass characteristics that we want, but it’s too late to reproduce the genetics of the animal. But through cloning we can resurrect that animal.”
Genetically engineered beets banned
SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge Friday banned the planting of genetically modified sugar beets engineered by Monsanto Co in a ruling that marks a major setback for the biotech giant.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled in 2009 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had approved Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beets without adequate environmental study.
Sugar beets account for over half of the nation’s sugar supply. But conventional sugar beet seeds remain widely available and environmentalists filing suit said the judge’s decision should not significantly affect sugar production.
White’s decision Friday to impose the ban did not apply to crops already planted or harvested. It stems from a lawsuit brought by environmentalists over Monsanto sugar beets engineered to be resistant to the weed-killer Roundup.
Roundup is also manufactured by Monsanto and was sold to farmers together with the genetically altered sugar beet seeds.
“It’s a victory for farmers, for the environment and for the public,” said George Kimbrell, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, plaintiffs in the case.
Did Powdered Milk From China Cause Baby Girls to Grow Breasts?
China’s Health Ministry has ordered an investigation into claims that powdered baby milk caused girls — as young as four months old — to grow breasts.
The investigation by the country’s food safety authorities will look into allegations that three girls, aged between four and 15 months, were found to have abnormal premature pubescent developments allegedly after consuming the same baby formula. The infants, who live in three separate towns near the central Chinese city Wuhan, were reportedly found to have as much estradiol, a female sex hormone, in their tiny bodies as an adult woman. The babes also had three to seven times the expected level of another hormone called lactogen, an investigation by Beijing’s Health Times newspaper said.
While the allegedly hormone-laced milk has, so far, only affected those three girls, it is eerily reminiscent of China’s tainted milk scandal in 2008 where at least six infants died and 300,000 were injured after being fed formula contaminated with the chemical melamine.
News 9 OKC: Farmers Call Possible EPA Crack Down on Farm Dust ‘Ridiculous’
News 9 OKC: Farmers Call Possible EPA Crack Down on Farm Dust ‘Ridiculous’
Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food
S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.
“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower
It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.
Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes. S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.
Kingston protesters stand up for their city’s prison farm
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While Toronto had the G20 summit snafu, Kingston now has the prison farms fiasco — yet another example of the Conservatives’ unscrupulous behaviour. Indeed, the Tories have a talent for alienating just about everyone these days. Even small “c” conservatives have been condemning the costly, ill-advised prison farm closures.
Not that you’re going to get an unbiased view of the prison farm issue from me. I am writing this column less than 24 hours after the shackles have finally been removed, following a sleepless night in a toilet-paper-free jail cell, atop a cement bed, under bright lights, hosted by Kingston’s finest.
This was not something a quiet, family-type guy a few months shy of 60 with only two speeding tickets to his name and certainly no arrests had ever expected. Certainly not as a professor of English at the Royal Military College where I am a grateful recipient of a teaching excellence award.
Where did I go wrong? To begin with, I listened to a Torontonian — none other than that known subversive and corrupter of minds, the infamous Margaret Atwood. During a recent visit, she led 1,200 Kingstonians on one of the mellowest, merriest marches ever to grace the Limestone City. Uppity seniors with their knitting, young parents with toddlers, a hay wagon, and even Stormy the donkey joined in.
Our destination? The door of the Correctional Services of Canada regional headquarters where Atwood and farmer Jeff Peters (my future cellmate) posted a notice protesting the shutting down of one of the most successful prison rehabilitation programs in the country’s history.
Atwood was trying to wake the Conservative dead after 16 months of peaceful public events, petitions, letters to the editor and MPs, delegations to various officials, and requests for dialogue by the local citizens’ group Save Our Prison Farms had met with absolutely no effect. The feisty author noted that at a time when world attention is focused on looming food shortages linked to climate change and other countries are scrambling to promote more food self-sufficiency, “the government of Canada is making exactly the wrong move.”
Calling the closures an insult to farmers across Canada, whose work Stephen Harper clearly does not value, she went on to state the obvious: these prison farms reflect Canadian values. Paving over thousands of acres of prime farmland to erect costly, for-profit, U.S.-style super-prisons when government statistics show crime rates are down defies reason.
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