Family curse

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Josie has to decide whether she wants to know if she's likely to get breast cancer

Gene dilemma in cancer battle'It was definitely a good thing to do'Women 'miss father health clues' A teenage girl whose family has "been cursed" by hereditary breast cancer for generations faces a dilemma - should she be tested for a mutated gene which could cause the disease?

"It's not so much that I'm scared to get the test, or I'm scared for the operation," said Josie Bellerby, an 18-year old from York.

"It's a decision. If you go and get the test done you can never take it back, so it's just whether or not you want to risk feeling like part of your body might kill you."

Josie comes from a family where breast cancer has claimed the lives of her grandmother and great-great-grandmother. Her mother, Julia, had a preventative double mastectomy when she was younger after she found out she had an increased risk of cancer.

Josie has two sisters, Lucy and Emma, and the possibility that any of their daughters has a faulty gene has been difficult for parents Julia and Jules.

“Start QuoteI could not bear to lose a daughter to cancer”

End QuoteJulia BellerbyJosie's mother Julia said: "I lost my mum to cancer, I could not bear to lose a daughter to cancer. That just doesn't feel like something I could cope with at all.

"It just makes me sad because it is all becoming kind of real now. This thing that I so dreaded when I went through it myself, that you'd all have to face it and here it is, it is actually happening."

"They shouldn't have to be thinking of things like breast cancer, at their age," said Jules.

Josie wants to go drama college next year, but fears that if she has the test, the results might affect her plans.

"I never thought about the future. The furthest in the future I thought about was when is my next audition or, when are my exams coming up?

Family Farmers Amplify Legal Complaint Against Monsanto's GMOs

New York: New threats by Monsanto have led to the filing of an amended complaint by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) in its suit on behalf of family farmers, seed businesses, and organic agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto's patents on genetically modified seed.

"Our clients don't want a fight with Monsanto, they merely want to be protected from the threat that they will be contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed and then accused of patent infringement," said PUBPAT Executive Director Daniel B. Ravicher. "We asked Monsanto to give our clients reassurances they wouldn't do such a thing, and in response Monsanto chose to instead reiterate the same implicit threat to organic agriculture that it has made in the past."

Over the years Monsanto has sued farmers alleging they have stolen the corporation's intellectual property by saving their proprietary seed rather than purchasing new seed each year that would include a "technology fee." Because pollen, and genetics, can be spread through the wind, or by insects, farmers are vulnerable to having their crops contaminated and then subsequently being sued by Monsanto.

Soon after the March filing of the lawsuit, Monsanto issued a statement saying that they would not assert their patents against farmers who suffer "trace" amounts of transgenic contamination. In response, and in the hope that the matter could be resolved out of court, PUBPAT attorneys wrote Monsanto's attorneys asking the company to make its promise legally binding.

Why New GIPSA Rules Support Family Farms

The USDA has a law on the books that levels the playing field between family farmers who raise cattle, hogs and poultry and the large meat packers who purchase their livestock and bring it to market. It's called the Packers and Stockyard Act, and its overseen by the USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration or GIPSA. But don't tussle with that mouthful because it doesn't explain what you need to know about the complex livestock market system. Just keep reading. GIPSA makes sure small producers have equal access to market that larger producers do. It's fair competition, which is, of course, the American way.

Sounds great, right? And just in time for the good food revolution. But instead, this law has been gathering dust because the USDA hasn't enforced it. New proposed rules (previously covered here on Civil Eats) amending the act would prevent large meat packers from artificially lowering the price of cattle, hogs and lamb. But four companies control over 80 percent of the U.S. meat market, and these "Big Four" are fighting an effort to strengthen the rule.

For all you urban food geeks who've never ridden the North Dakota range or shoveled chicken manure in central North Carolina, here's some context. When you're raising livestock, timely access to market is critical because a meat animal is a perishable product. When the animal has reached optimal weight, it must be sold in a narrow window of time, typically within two to three weeks. If it cannot be processed, it begins to degrade in quality, and a producer is subject to a significant price deflation. If a packer won't purchase your animals for slaughter, you're stuck selling your animal either too early or too late, competitive bidding isn't possible, and the packer conspires to give you a ridiculously low price for your labors.

Sustainable Peasant and Family Farm Agriculture Can Feed the World

The 2008 world food price crisis, and more recent price hikes this year, have focused attention on the ability of the world food system to "feed the world." In La Vía Campesina, the global alliance of peasant and family farm organizations, we believe that agroecological food production by small farmers is the agricultural model best suited to meeting future food needs.

The contemporary food crisis is not really a crisis of our ability to produce. It is more due to factors like the food speculation and hoarding that transnational food corporations and investment funds engage in, the global injustices that mean some eat too much while many others don't have money to buy adequate food, and/or lack land on which to grow it, and misguided policies like the promotion agrofuels that devote farm land to feeding cars instead of feeding people. However, we cannot deny that our collective ability to grow enough food - including, crucially, how we grow it -is an important piece in the jigsaw puzzle of ending hunger.