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The COTO Report goes down under to interview Max Igan about his films, his book, current events and the New World Order
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Don’t Let Obama’s USDA Approve Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready Alfalfa!

Global Research, March 3, 2010

Capitol Advantage

Submit comments yourself or click “GO!” to personalize Organic Consumers Association’s template letter.

Don’t believe Monsanto’s greenwashing. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), aren’t meant to feed the world or be resilient when there are droughts and floods – they’re designed to sell pesticides, especially Monsanto’s weed killer RoundUp, which the "Roundup Ready" crops, corn, cotton, soy, canola, and now sugar beets and alfalfa, are genetically engineered to withstand.

A 2009 study showed that, over the last 13 years, Roundup Ready crops have dramatically increased herbicide use by 383 million pounds!
Before Obama took office, the movement to stop new GMOs was making progress. In 2007, a Federal court ruled that the Bush USDA’s approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa violated the law because it failed to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa and the development of "super-weeds." The court banned the planting of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a rigorous analysis of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa planting, but Monsanto is appealing. They’re taking producers of organic alfalfa seed all the way to the Supreme Court!

Now, OCA’s worst fears – about what would happen if the man who was Biotech Governor of the Year, Obama’s USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, was put in charge of new genetically modified crops – are coming true. Vilsack is trying to get the court-ordered ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa lifted by issuing a new draft environmental impact statement (EIS). This sets the stage for Obama Administration approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa.

Alfalfa is the fourth most widely grown crop in the U.S. and a key source of dairy forage. The first perennial crop to be genetically engineered, GE alfalfa can regenerate itself from its root-stock. It is open-pollinated by bees, which can cross-pollinate at distances of several miles, spreading the patented, foreign DNA to conventional and organic crops. GMO-contamination of organic alfalfa is inevitable if the Obama Administration successfully commercializes Monsanto’s GM alfalfa.

Consumers who ingest Roundup Ready alfalfa genes are risking their health; according to the EIS, "acute toxicity in mice was observed."

According to the EIS, consumers who ingest Roundup may experience "general and non-specific signs of toxicity from subchronic and chronic exposure to glyphosate includ[ing] changes in liver weight, blood chemistry (may suggest mild liver toxicity), liver pathology, and weight of the pituitary gland."

The EIS warns that, "Based on upper estimates of exposure … infants consuming fruit and all age groups consuming vegetables may be at risk of adverse effects associated with acute exposure to glyphosate residues."

Consuming milk and meat from animals fed crops that are genetically engineered is also risky. In a survey of milk products sold in stores in Italy, results from the screening of 60 samples of 12 different milk brands demonstrated the presence of GM maize sequences in 15 (25%) and of GM soybean sequences in 7 samples (11.7%).

Consumers are going to want to avoid Roundup Ready alfalfa, but according to the EIS, we don’t have that right because, "At the present time, there is no policy regarding the unintended presence of GE material in organic products or food, consistent with the fact that the NOP is a process-based program for certifying a farm or production system as organic, and not a product-based program that tests or certifies individual products as organic."

We can’t let the Obama administration take away our right to GMO-free food. Please send Secretary Vilsack a letter by clicking "GO!" The Obama administration is accepting public comments through March 3, 2010.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17870

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Monsanto & Cancer Milk: FOX NEWS KILLS STORY & FIRES Reporters.

FOX NEWS Reporters (Reporters Steve Wilson & Jane Akre) uncover that most of the Milk in the USA and across some parts of the world is unfit to drink due to Monsanto Corporation’s POSILAC®, which has been proven to be a cancer-causing growth hormone.(known in short as "BGH" "BST" or "rBGH" ), but they were fired for trying to tell people the truth.
(Important note: After a long court battle, the Court dismissed the whistle blowers protection for the reporters because the Court stated that there was no law to force that the NEWS state the truth! Fact! Going on to say the NEWS was no different than other TV shows/reality shows!!)
But the FDA has turned a blind eye once again!
If you consumed or fed regular milk to your family today (8/21/08), there is more than a 90% chance that it was from a cow injected with BGH
(Bovine somatotropin developed by using recombinant DNA technology).
You could be killing or harming your child every time you pour them a glass of milk, the same as pouring them a glass of slow acting poison.
Please take action to ensure our children’s safety, for they can not protect themselves.
What first alarmed farmers was the massive amount of PUS in the milk but Monsanto and the FDA still had no concerns by stating that the PUS was not harmful to be ingested by consumers!
If you have little children, at least feed them certified BGH free Milk, Organic Milk or Organic/BGM free milk equivalent like Organic soy milk.

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Stop Monsanto’s GMO Contamination

By Adam Klaus

Source: Credo

Thanks to Greg for this tip!

During the Bush administration, Monsanto illegally won USDA approval for its genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa by convincing regulators to bypass a mandatory environmental review. In response to a lawsuit by consumer groups, the courts then stepped in and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA followed the law.

In December, the USDA released its belated review of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa seed and determined that Monsanto’s alfalfa met the Obama Administration’s standards, despite the risk of organic contamination.

This conclusion came despite the acknowledgment by USDA researchers that GE alfalfa is virtually certain to “contaminate” normal seeds. Cross-contamination is the number one concern with genetically engineered crops.

The USDA is accepting public comments on Monsanto’s application through February 16. Tell the USDA that Monsanto’s alfalfa cannot be approved — the future of organics depends on it.

Organic contamination is devastating for organic farmers, especially organic dairy farmers, most of whom use organic alfalfa for feed. The presence of even the smallest amount of GE material can cause a farm to lose its organic certification. And court documents indicate that early plantings of GE alfalfa did contaminate conventional alfalfa. Yet the USDA maintains that Monsanto’s existing safety protocols are good enough. This is ridiculous!

Even worse, the USDA concluded that the possibility of contamination of organic fields is of no concern, since consumers won’t care if their organic food or milk contains genetically engineered components. Yet central to the definition of the USDA Organic label is the total absence of genetically modified ingredients. An overwhelming majority of consumers buy organic to avoid GE products and would be shocked to learn the USDA is so cavalier about the risks of transgenetic contamination. The USDA is accepting public comments on Monsanto’s application through February 16. Make your voice heard today.

Barb’s note: The USDA does not give a rodent’s patoot about what we say. However, flooding them with comments might just take them back a bit. There is power in numbers.

http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/stop-monsantos-gmo-contamination/

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Julio Godoy
IPS News
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:49 EST

Berlin – Biodiversity, already decaying fast as a result of climate change and intensive farming, is under further threat by genetic modification (GM) of seeds, says a leading German ecological activist.
Genetic modification of seeds is dangerous, "since it is at the beginning of the agricultural chain, and can spread all over," says Benedikt Haerlin, former campaign manager at the environmental organisation Greenpeace and former member of the European Parliament.
Haerlin now leads the global ‘Save our Seeds’ campaign in cooperation with some 300 environmental organisations across Europe.
The campaign is currently calling attention to plans by the European Commission (EC) to tolerate "accidental or technically unavoidable" contamination of conventional seed with GM varieties.
In September 2004, the EC sought to pass a directive allowing up to 0.7 percent of GM organisms (GMO) in maize and oilseed rape seed without being labeled.
But fierce protests by organic farmers and environmental organisations forced the EC to withdraw the proposal. Since then, EC has not submitted any new recommendations.
Some commissioners, such as Stavros Dimas, who was in charge of environment between 2004 and 2009, have even questioned whether thresholds are necessary. Although the mandate for the present EC ended last October, Dimas is still serving as commissioner for environment until a new commission is approved and takes office.
"The official position of the EC remains, however, that a new proposal for the specification of threshold values for genetic contamination of seed is in the works," Haerlin told IPS.
Haerlin said that calling such contamination "accidental or technically unavoidable" with GMOs is misleading. "For fodder or even food, that genetic contamination under 0.9 percent is not declared can be acceptable," Haerlin explained. "At least, I can be sure that such contamination won’t spread to other areas of life."
This is not the case with seeds, he said. "GM seeds can contaminate the fields of peasants and farmers who oppose them. After contamination, they would be forced to prove the origin of the pollution.
”Farmers using what they believe are organic seeds, but which have been genetically contaminated, would continue using part of the polluted crop as seeds for the next season, and multiply and spread the contamination, " he said.
"The most important impact of GM agriculture is on the social and economic conditions of farmers," Haerlin told IPS. "In general, GM agriculture makes farmers dependent on the big agrochemical business, and also provokes conflicts between peasants and landowners."
Haerlin accused the agrochemical giants that control the market for GM seeds to use "back doors and bad legislation to put their seeds on the market. They know that otherwise they would not sell their seeds."
Haerlin warned that research and development in agriculture is taking place "more and more only in the chemistry labs, and not on the field, and are concentrated in only a handful of companies." Because of this, organic, traditional seeds are disappearing, he said.
"The environmental consequences are enormous and extremely dangerous, and, once they have happened, it will be too late to turn back the tide," Haerlin said.
According to environmental and agriculture experts, 25 years ago there were at least 7,000 seed growers worldwide, and none of them controlled more than one percent of the global market.
Today, after a takeover spree, ten major biochemical multinationals, including Monsanto, DuPont-Pioneer, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, BASF and Dow Agrosciences, control more than 50 percent of the seeds market.
"The goal of these companies is, of course, to make profits," Haerlin told IPS. "In order to improve their profits, they all apply one strategy to increase their control of the market: they impose upon farmers worldwide the so-called vertical integration of inputs, from seeds to fertilizers to pesticides, all from one brand."
Such "vertical integration of agricultural inputs" has transformed agriculture in developing countries into a two-class business, Angelika Hillbeck, researcher on bio-safety and agriculture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told IPS.
"In the developing countries there is a class of farmers with large plantations and enough money who can afford to buy all inputs from the major biochemical companies, from seeds and fertilizers to pesticides and conservatives,” she said.
But there are small farmers for whom the biochemical markets are out of reach. Additionally GM seeds have crowded out organic seeds, reduced botanical diversity, especially in developing countries, and contributed to a further decimation of biodiversity.
All European Union (EU) member countries have joined the United Nations campaign declaring 2010 ‘The Year of Biodiversity’ in an effort to emphasize the need to protect variety in flora and fauna. The U.N., which launched the campaign on Jan. 11 in Berlin, has recognized that the objective set in 2003 to stop the decimation of biodiversity by 2010 would not be reached.
This European engagement in favor of biodiversity appears to be only lip service to the environment cause since, in reality, European institutions support biochemical multinationals that are out to make genetic contamination legal.
Additionally, European institutions appear to have revolving doors connecting some of their leading officers to private biochemical and agribusiness companies – as the case of Suzy Renckens shows.
Renckens was until 2008 head of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)’s GMO Unit and coordinator of the European scientific expert panel dealing with GMOs. One month after she quit the EFSA, Renckens became head of Biotech Regulatory Affairs for Europe, Africa and Middle East at Syngenta, one of the largest European agribusiness companies.
In her own words, Renckens now lobbies on behalf of Syngenta to influence EU decision-making on genetically engineered organisms. This is the very same issue she was responsible for regulating while with the EFSA.
Haerlin said that ‘Save our Seeds’ has formulated a petition, addressed to the EC and other political authorities in Europe, calling for a ban of GMOs in seeds.
The petition, which has been so far signed by well over 200,000 citizens all over the EU, says that "the uncontrolled spread and propagation of GMOs is incompatible with the precautionary protection of the environment and human health."
The petition also says that "the purity of seeds has to be ensured by those who produce or wish to grow GMOs and not by those who wish to continue farming and consuming products without GMOs."
"Costs arising from this obligation must not be borne by consumers and certainly not by farmers," the petition adds. "Liabilities will have to be covered by the producers of GMOs. Such a guarantee may have to be ensured in other directives, regulations and legislation before the proposed directive enters into force."
The initiative ‘Save our Seeds’ is being coordinated by the Berlin-based Foundation on Future Farming, which primarily supports the development and breeding of organic seed.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202214-EU-Farmers-Face-Genetic-Contamination-of-Seeds

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