Will GM Crops Collapse the Food System?

By Jim Goodman
When Genetically Modified (GM) crops were first planted commercially in 1996 they were just another technological innovation that fit well into the trend of larger farms and fewer farmers. Since weed control was a time consuming task, chemicals that killed the weeds without harming the crop struck farmers as a good idea.

Often when a technology is introduced one never considers why it was introduced or what future events and connections may be put in motion. Clearly the trend to global crop production and marketing has changed the face of agriculture. Now we are left to decide if it was a good thing, this world changing shift in crop production brought about by GM crops.

While GM has been very widely adopted and praised by some, particularly in the U.S., Canada and South America, results have been mixed, at best, in India and Africa. American farmers have used the technology to convert vast swaths of land from prairies, tropical rain forests and former mixed livestock/crop farms into a vast corn/soy mono-culture.

After nearly 20 years of GM crops, genetic modifications for herbicide resistance and pest resistance are still the only two commercially viable traits of any significance. There are no yield genes that will revolutionize farming, and weeds and insects are quickly developing resistance to the GM technologies.

When Monsanto and other corporations involved in seed research and development brought GM seed to the market, what was their reason? Obviously they saw an opportunity for profit, that is what corporations do.   

Ashland Oregon Takes Stand Against GMO Crops

Daily Tidings, September 5, 2012
The Ashland City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to send a letter asking Jackson County commissioners to take whatever action they deem necessary to protect organic farming in the county from genetically modified crops.

Organic food cannot contain genetically modified organisms according to national organic standards.

Organic crops could be contaminated by pollen drifting in from fields of genetically modified crops, causing organic farmers to lose their ability to sell their crops, according to residents who testified at a City Council meeting on Tuesday.

One local farmer said he had to dump $4,400 worth of seed that he would normally sell to seed packet companies because his crops had been potentially contaminated by genetically modified chard growing less than three miles away.

A United States Department of Agriculture standard calls for genetically modified crops to be at least four miles away from other crops, residents said.

"This is not only a health issue, but an economic issue," said City Councilor Carol Voisin.

Through its Natural Resources Advisory Committee, the Jackson County government has been exploring the feasibility of adopting an ordinance that would ban the use of genetically modified seeds in the county.

The earliest that committee is likely to make a recommendation to county commissioners is January 2013, said Ashland City Administrator Dave Kanner.

The issue of genetically modified food continues to be debated around the world, with some saying the crops could harm the environment, the organic food industry and people's health.

12 New GM Crops Up For USDA Approval

USDA Fast-Tracks GMO Crop Approval Process
By Melinda Suelflow, Campaigns
Stop the New "Birth-Defect Ready" GMOs!

Stop Bayer's New GMO Herbicide-Addicted Soy!

Stop Syngenta's New Bt Corn!

Stop Dow's Agent Orange Soy!

Stop GMO Apples!

Stop Monsanto's Dicamba Tolerant Soybean!Earlier this summer, the USDA posted twelve new GE crops for public comment with a September 11 deadline, and nine are under the new fast-tracked process. That's twelve new GMOs to review and issue comments on in two months!

Here's the lowdown. Three of the new crops are under the old petition process. Under the old process there is only one 60-day public comment period. Here are the three crops under the old process:

--- Dow 2,4-D and Glufosinate Tolerant Soybean (APHIS-2012-0019)

Since the introduction of GM crops, the US has seen herbicide use increase by over 300 million pounds.  Big Biotech originally claimed that weeds would not develop resistance to glyphosate (RoundUp), but they have and these new "superweeds" have become the driving force behind new crops engineered for stacked, or multiple, herbicide tolerances. Adoption of these new crops will lead to dramatic increases in the use of higher risk herbicides such as 2,4-D and dicamba, perpetuating the herbicide treadmill that is already in place.

2,4-D is already the third-most-used US herbicide, after glyphosate and atrazine, and as a leading source of dioxin pollution, it's one of the most deadly.  As of yet, however, it's hardly used on soy at all. Just 3 percent of total US soybean acres were treated with 2,4-D in 2006. Not only will this percentage skyrocket once Agent Orange Soy hits the market, the amount used per acre may triple, according to the USDA.

Take Action!

---Bayer Glyphosate and Isoxaflutole Tolerant Soybean (APHIS-2012-0029)

Bayer's petition to force its new controversial herbicide (isoxaflutole) tolerant soy on the market conceals crucial information on potential allergenicity and toxicity that came to light when EU experts examined the GMO soybean.

Take Action!

---Syngenta Corn Rootworm Resistant Corn (APHIS-2012-0024)

Syngenta's genetically engineered Bt crops have been banned in many countries because of the documented harm they cause to people, animals and insects. Bt corn produces its own insecticide that kills bad bugs and good bugs alike, Bt corn pollen has reportedly killed peasants in the Philippines, Bt livestock feed harms animals, and the Bt toxin is now found in the blood of over 80% of women and their unborn children.

Take Action!

Under the new process, USDA has also opened nine additional new crops for public comment. This initial comment period applies to the petitions for nonregulated status which include information submitted by the petitioning company. Once USDA has the completed their environmental analyses they will open a final 30-day comment period for the decision-making documents.

Here are the 9 crops under the new process with the same September 11 deadline:

---Okanagan Non-Browning Apple (APHIS-2012-0025)
Take Action!

Okanagan's "Arctic" apple would be the first genetically engineered version of a food that people directly bite into. According to the latest study by the Environmental Working Group, conventionally grown apples are the most pesticide contaminated fruit or vegetable on the market. Conventional apples are dangerous, and GMO apples are just a dumb idea - one not even supported by many in the apple industry itself!

---Monsanto Dicamba Tolerant Soybean (APHIS-2012-0047)
Take Action!

According to the Institute for Science in Society (ISIS), "dicamba is actually an old herbicide that served alongside "agent orange" in Vietnam, and has been resurrected as an environmentally friendly chemical through the magic of public relations."   

---BASF Imidazolinone Tolerant Soybean (APHIS-2012-0028)

---Monsanto High Yield Soybean (APHIS-2012-0020)

---Monsanto Hybrid Corn (APHIS-2012-0027)

Four of the nine are genetically engineered with a soil bacteria that keeps them alive even when they're sprayed with massive doses of the herbicide glyphosate (Monsanto's RoundUp). More of these so-called "RoundUp Ready" crops mean more RoundUp sprayed on our food. This is horrible because Monsanto's RoundUp causes birth defects. Instead of "RoundUp Ready" we should call these GMOs "Birth-Defect Ready"!

According to a report published by Earth Open Source, industry's own studies -- including one commissioned by Monsanto -- showed as long ago as the 1980's that RoundUp's active ingredient, glyphosate, causes birth defects in laboratory animals.

---Dow 2,4-D, Glyphosate and Glufosinate tolerant Soybean (APHIS-2012-0032)
Take Action!

---Monsanto Glyphosate Tolerant Canola (APHIS-2012-0035)

---Pioneer Glyphosate Tolerant Canola (APHIS-2012-0031)

---Genective Glyphosate Tolerant Corn (APHIS-2012-0046)


USDA Fast-Tracks GMO Crop Approval Process

Despite massive public opposition, last year the USDA announced plans   to streamline its genetically engineered petition process under the  Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Earlier this year these controversial changes were implemented, speeding up the approval process for new genetically engineered seeds and crops. The new process will cut in half the time it takes for new GE seeds and crops to enter the market.

USDA claims that the new fast-track process allows for earlier input from the public to improve the quality of its environmental analyses. But according to a USDA press release,  the new process is a part of efforts by the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, to "transform USDA into a high-performing organization that focuses on its customers." The customers that USDA is so keen on assisting are none other than Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF, Syngenta, and the rest of the Biotech bullies!

Nearly All Conventional Food Crops Grown with Fluoride-Laced Water, then Sprayed with More Fluoride

By Ethan A. Huff
The average American today is exposed to a whole lot more fluoride than he or she is probably aware. Conventional produce, it turns out, is one of the most prevalent sources of fluoride exposure besides fluoridated water, as conventional crops are not only irrigated with fluoride-laced water in many cases, but also sprayed with pesticide and herbicide chemicals that have been blended with fluoride, and later processed once again with fluoridated water.

This fact may come as a surprise to many who have bought into the idea that eating more fresh produce is automatically beneficial for health, regardless of how that produce was grown. Thinking that they are doing their bodies a favor, millions of Americans have incorporated conventional fruits and vegetables into their everyday diets, not realizing that the resulting cumulative effect of fluoride exposure from these foods could be harming their health.

Many food crops uptake fluoride chemicals from water, soil

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 75 percent of the U.S. population is being forcibly medicated with fluoride chemicals via their water supplies. This means that a significant percentage of U.S. crops are also irrigated using this same fluoridated water, particularly in the "Bread Belt" states, many of which are almost entirely fluoridated. (http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/statistics/2010stats.htm)

While not all crops uptake fluoride from water in the same amounts, many absorb significant amounts of fluoride through their root systems every time they are watered. Tea plants, for instance, are among the worst when it comes to absorbing fluoride from soil and water, and storing it in their leaves (http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/tea/). Grapes are another crop that tends to accumulate fluoride in high levels as well.

New WikiLeaks Cables Show US Diplomats Promote Genetically Engineered Crops Worldwide

By Mike Ludwig
Dozens of United States diplomatic cables released in the latest WikiLeaks dump on Wednesday reveal new details of the US effort to push foreign governments to approve  genetically engineered (GE) crops and promote the worldwide interests of agribusiness giants like Monsanto and DuPont.

The cables further confirm previous Truthout reports on the diplomatic pressure the US has put on Spain and France, two countries with powerful anti-GE crop movements, to speed up their biotech approval process and quell anti-GE sentiment within the European Union (EU).

Several cables describe "biotechnology outreach programs" in countries across the globe, including African, Asian and South American countries where Western biotech agriculture had yet to gain a foothold. In some cables (such as this 2010 cable from Morocco) US diplomats ask the State Department for funds to send US biotech experts and trade industry representatives to target countries for discussions with high-profile politicians and agricultural officials.

Truthout recently reported on front groups supported by the US government, philanthropic foundations and companies like Monsanto that are working to introduce pro-biotechnology policy initiatives and GE crops in developing African countries, and several cables released this week confirm that American diplomats have promoted biotech agriculture to countries like Tunisia, South Africa and Mozambique.

Monsanto's GMO Crops Killing off Monarch Butterflies

By Andrew Pollack
As recently as a decade ago, farms in the Midwest were commonly marred - at least as a farmer would view it - by unruly patches of milkweed amid the neat rows of emerging corn or soybeans.

Not anymore. Fields are now planted with genetically modified corn and soybeans resistant to the herbicide Roundup, allowing farmers to spray the chemical to eradicate weeds, including milkweed.

And while that sounds like good news for the farmers, a growing number of scientists fear it is imperiling the monarch butterfly, whose spectacular migrations make it one of the most beloved of insects - "the Bambi of the insect world," as an entomologist once put it.

Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed, and their larvae eat it. While the evidence is still preliminary and disputed, experts like Chip Taylor say the growing use of genetically modified crops is threatening the orange-and-black butterfly by depriving it of habitat.

"This milkweed has disappeared from at least 100 million acres of these row crops," said Dr. Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas and director of the research and conservation program Monarch Watch. "Your milkweed is virtually gone." 

Obama Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction

By Robbie Hanna Anderman

Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt's uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.

So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?

Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let's not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.

Alfalfa reaches our tables within milk, cream, butter, and meat, as it is used as a major animal feed in the dairy industry. It is also used to enrich soils in organic farming.

At this time, no genetically engineered crops are permitted for sale in the European Union (though WikiLeaks has revealed that the U.S. government is exerting strong pressure on the EU to allow them). Thus this new deregulation will potentially close off present markets for organic farmers' crops.

Raging Debate in Australia as Monsanto's GE Crops Contaminate Organic Farms

By Elizabeth Farrelly

The West Australian Minister for Agriculture, Terry Redman, wants to redefine "organic" to accommodate genetic engineering. Well he might wish it, since the legal battle brewing there over contamination of organic crops by genetically modified ones could easily blow right back onto his turf. Far scarier, though, is the environmental blowback, which could knock all these little old floods and cyclones into a cocked hat.

Steve Marsh is an organic farmer in Kojonup, four hours south-east of Perth. Or that's what he thought he was. So did the certifiers. Then, last December, the nightmare came true. Marsh's wheat and oats began testing 70 per cent positive for novel DNA and he was stripped of certification. A year earlier, following approval by the Gene Technology Regulator, the WA government approved commercialisation of GM, or ''Roundup Ready'', canola - although their own fact sheet at the time cited a United Nations report that "since the advent of GM canola in Canada farmers can no longer grow organic canola in western Canada."

They also admitted that GM canola can cross-pollinate with a number of other species, and eating such resulting crops would decertify organic livestock as well. Yet they broke their promise to publish a list of GM farmers so that non-GM growers could take evasive action. Their official advice? That "farmers discuss . . . this remote possibility