Canopy Roads of South Georgia

Greed is Good for Poisoning the Food Supply?

For many years big agro has treated the world's health as an economic externality, a problem for somebody else that did not affect its own bottom line. That is starting to change, most recently in Argentina.

Anthony Gucciardi wrote for NaturalSociety 11 April 2012, Explosive: Monsanto ‘Knowingly Poisoned Workers’ Causing Devastating Birth Defects,

In a developing news piece just unleashed by a courthouse news wire, Monsanto is being brought to court by dozens of Argentinean tobacco farmers who say that the biotech giant knowingly poisoned them with herbicides and pesticides and subsequently caused ”devastating birth defects” in their children. The farmers are now suing not only Monsanto on behalf of their children, but many big tobacco giants as well. The birth defects that the farmers say occurred as a result are many, and include cerebral palsy, down syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers, and blindness.

This would be the same Monsanto that was convicted of chemical poisoning in France.

But this is once again far away in a small country of which we know nothing, right? Wrong:

The farmers come from small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell their tobacco to many United States distributors. The family farmers say that major tobacco companies like the Philip Morris company asked them to use Monsanto's herbicides and pesticides, assuring them that the products were safe. Through asserting that the toxic chemicals were safe, the farmers state in their claim that the tobacco companies ”wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”

Still, it must be some obscure poison only sold in the third world, right?

Wrong:

The majority of the farmers in the area used Monsanto's Roundup, an herbicide with the active ingredient glyphosate that has shown to be killing human kidney cells. What's more, the farmers say that the tobacco companies pushed Monsanto's Roundup on the farmers despite a lack of protective equipment. In other words, these farmers — many in dire economic conditions — were being directly exposed to Roundup in large concentrations without any protective gear (or even experience or skills in handling the substance). Still, the farmers say the tobacco giants required the struggling farmers to ‘purchase excessive quantities of Roundup and other pesticides’.

That would be the same Roundup that farmers use around here all the time, without protective equipment. The Roundup we already knew was

Monsanto convicted of poisoning

Marion Douet wrote for Reuters today, Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France. The farmer who wonthe case remarked,

"I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this," Francois, 47, told Reuters.

He and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products.

France and the EU have already take other actions:

The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its member countries have since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous.

Monsanto's Lasso was banned in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

France, the EU's largest agricultural producer, is now targetting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm and non-farm use in 2008-2010.

Maybe we should try that in the U.S. Ban RoundUp, that is. Like Paul François said back in December aboout Lasso,

Monsanto knew they had a problem with this product.

As Yves Calvi wrote for RTL.fr 12 December 2011,

Because of the dangerousness of these products, in the country, nobody says anything, it's omerta! Why such a vow of silence? The pressure of lobbyists is strong according to Paul François. He says the dangers of pesticides may be as important as those of asbestos.

I would say worse, because asbestos doesn't usually drift across the road onto you, and isn't deliberately applied to most crops, unlike RoundUp.

It's time to break the silence, so we won't have so many farmers and children and other people being made sick by pesticides.

-jsq

Southern Nevada Health District forced private citizens to pour bleach on home-grown organic food

Quail Hollow Farm was holding a Farm-to-Fork dinner for invited guests, when a health inspector showed up and forced them to destroy the food. In this video of the event you can hear the arrogance of the inspector:

That's all the information you need.

Well, no, it's not.

The inspector said it was a public event because the guests had paid for d inner.

The farmer eventually called their lawyer who said ask the inspector to see her warrant. She had none.

But they had already been told their food that they grew with their own hands was not fit for a public dinner, nor a private dinner, not even to feed to their pigs. They were forced to pour bleach on it, making it unfit even for compost.

Given that every food contamination recall in recent years has come from big factory farms, not from small organic farms, does this raid seem right to you?

Massive lawsuit against Monsanto for seed patent abuse

The Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA) are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Monsanto's attempts to control seeds.

Wake Up World wrote 19 September 2011, Case Update: 270,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto

The 83 family farmers, small and family owned seed businesses, and agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed filed papers in federal court (13th August 2011) defending their right to seek legal protection from the threat of being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) represents the plaintiffs in the suit, titled Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto and pending in the Southern District of New York. The August 13 filings respond to a motion filed by Monsanto in mid-July to have the case dismissed. In support of the plantiffs’ right to bring the case, 12 agricultural organizations also filed a friend-of-the-court amici brief.

“Rather than give a straight forward answer on whether they would sue our clients for patent infringement if they are ever contaminated by Monsanto’s transgenic seed, Monsanto has instead chosen to try to deny our clients the right to receive legal protection from the courts,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s Executive Director. “Filings include sworn statements by several of the plaintiffs themselves explaining to the court how the risk of contamination by transgenic seed is real and why they cannot trust Monsanto to not use an occurrence of contamination as a basis to accuse them of patent infringement.”

This goes well beyond control of seeds, of course, and beyond the plaintiffs:

Pesticide spray drift finally gets legal rebuf

Tired of hacking and coughing after cotton fields get sprayed to open their bolls? Tired of losing your garden or organic crops to Roundup drift? Now there are two precedents for legal recourse.

Ethan A. Huff wrote for NaturalNews.com 3 August 2011, Court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers whose pesticides 'trespass' and contaminate their fields

Purveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops — and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany them — are finally getting a taste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota's Star Tribune has reported that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.

Oluf and Debra Johnson's 1,500-acre organic farm in Stearns County, Minn., has repeatedly been contaminated by nearby conventional and GMO farms since the couple started it in the 1990s. A local pesticide cooperative known as Paynesville Farmers Union (PFU), which is near the farm, has been cited at least four times for violating pesticide laws, and inadvertently causing damage to the Johnson's farm.

The first time it was realized that pesticides had drifted onto the Johnson's farm in 1998, PFU apologized, but did not agree to pay for damages. As anyone with an understanding of organic practices knows, even a small bit of contamination can result in having to plow under that season's crops, forget profits, and even lose the ability to grow organic crops in the same field for at least a couple years.

And all most people have done so far is let it slide. But the Johnsons did something.

SEC investigating Monsanto's Roundup tactics

Somebody oughta.

Tom Philpott wrote for Mother Jones 19 July 2011, SEC Investigates Monsanto's Roundup Biz

The SEC is investigating Monsanto's tactics for defending the market for its herbicide, Roundup. The news emerged just before the July 4 holiday weekend, during Monsanto's press conference about its quarterly financial earnings. Company execs boasted of a 77 percent increase in profit before dropping a mini-bombshell, The Wall Street Journal reported:

Monsanto said it was cooperating with a previously undisclosed US Securities and Exchange Commission probe into its customer incentive programs for herbicides in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, and had received a subpoena to provide related documents.

A subpoena sounds like a start. If they do a real investigation I wouldn't be surprised if they find enough evidence to pull some licenses.

-jsq

How many raw milk drinkers?

A lot more than most people think, or that the CDC has said much about.

Steve Bemis digs into the Population Survey Atlas of Exposures, 2006-2007

It was huge, conducting telephone interviews with 17,372 interviewees representing a population of 45,883,553 people in the listed ten states, from May 2006 to April 2007.

So, how many raw milk drinkers?

The case against agrochemicals

Some people didn't like the source of a recent post about the toxic effects of agrochemicals and GM plants on the environment, plants, animals, and people. There are plenty of other sources, including:

How big agro causes the problem

• Vandana Shiva on the pesticiders' strategy, why it's bad, and what to do about it.
• Some specific U.S. cases of big agro gaming the regulatory system at the expense of the environment.
• International cases of Monsanto gaming regulatory systems.
• How Monsanto leverages patents to dominate the world food supply.
• The Fox-can-lie case, in which Monsanto made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows and the courts said that was OK; Fox can lie.
• Monsanto blocking research.

Evidence of the ill effects

• U.S. president's cancer panel sounding the alarm about "Americans are facing "grievous harm" from chemicals in the air, food and water that have largely gone unregulated and ignored."
• Scientific American on "The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods."
• Peer-reviewed research on animal miscarriages.
• Sterility and infant mortality in hamsters.
• Liver and kidney damage in rats.
• Research on toxic chemicals from the GM plants themselves polluting streams.
• Pesticides found in the urine of schoolchildren linked to ADHD. More about that, including a link to the actual peer-reviewed journal article.
• A German documentary with research from Argentina and France, plus links I've added to that research.
• A French documentary The World According to Monsanto.

There are ways forward

• Remember, even Monsanto is not invulnerable, and in fact had a bad year in 2010.
• Monsanto's Roundup no longer works on the mutant weeds it's bred, so Monsanto has to pay farmers to spray rival pesticides and even that doesn't really work.
• The most profitable crops are non-GM crops.
• Organic Farming Yields often Better Than with Agrochemicals.
• Local agricultural research on how to farm without Roundup.
• How to do organic peanuts in particular.
• They can farm without pesticides in west Africa, they don't damage the land, and they make more money.
• Even Haiti refuses Monsanto's seeds, calling them "a new earthquake".

What you can do

• Things you can do yourself to replace poisoned food with local and organic food.
• Especially vote at the checkout counter. If you don't know it's local and non-GMO, don't buy it. There may be no labelling laws, but local supermarkets know what's local.
• Protests worked in India.

Germans document glysophate poisoning

The promise of Roundup:

"No tilling, just seed, spray, and harvest."

Adriana Alvarez, who lives next door to an Argentinia GM soy field, says:

"They came from this side and sprayed the entire field. Here he turns, spraying all the time."

The farmer was wearing a mask. That's more than no-till farmers around here do.

Interesting statistic that in Argentina soy production increased 35-fold between 1996 and 2003 while Roundup use increased 56 times. And eventually it doesn't work at all, because it breeds resistant weeds. In Georgia it took only ten years to produce mutant pigweed that not just Roundup but not even paraquat can kill. Many farmers are realizing that it's cheaper, more effective, and more profitable to plow the weed under in the fall and plant a winter cover crop. Even mutant weeds are not resistant to cold steel.

The documentary points out many products in German stores that include GM soy. In Argentina, it's even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.

They interview Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:

"The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here. If you look closely you can see one brain. Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin."

Monsanto refused an interview, responding in writing:

"Monsanto is convinced of the safety and usefullness of its products and its contribution to efficacious agriculture."

As Dr. Carrasco has been known to say:

"Son hipócritas, cipayos de las corporaciones, pero tienen miedo. Saben que no pueden tapar el sol con la mano."

"They are hypocrites, those corporate lackeys, but they are afraid. They know they can't cover the sun with their hand."

The documentarians interviewed Gilles-Eric Seralini in Caen, France.

"To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose. A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field. Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate, for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup."

Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe. Seralini says:

"Transgenics are toxic for human health."

This is the same Monsanto that made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows.

The same Monsanto that was convicted by the French Supreme Court of lying about leaving the soil clean.

The same Monsanto that was fined $2.5 million by the U.S. EPA for selling genetically modified cotton seeds without labeling them as such.

Who should you believe? A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception, or scientists who say that GM crops cause liver and kidney damage in animals, according to research using Monsanto's own data.

The Roundup-spraying farmer said:

Roundup, mas algo! mas algo!

Roundup, more and more!

It's time to say:

Ya basta!

Enough already!

-jsq

PS: Credits to the German TV consumer series 'plus minus':

Bericht
D. Flintz
M. Rauck
Kamera
J. Fenske
C. Kültür
J. Midú
Schnitt
H. Bischoff
E. Elsner

GM toxic soy in animal feed broadcast (© WDR) by Detlef Flintz and Mathias Rauck. Translation and highlighting provided by TraceConsult. Broadcast Tue, 08 Feb. 2011 | 9:50 PM.

Forbes admits it was wrong about Monsanto

Robert Langreth writes in Forbes that Forbes Was Wrong On Monsanto. Really Wrong.

Forbes made Monsanto the company of the year last year in The Planet Versus Monsanto. I know because I wrote the article. Since then everything that could have gone wrong for the genetically engineered seed company….has gone wrong. Super-weeds that are resistant to its RoundUp weed killer are emerging, even as weed killer sales are being hit by cheap Chinese generics. An expensive new bioengineered corn seed with eight new genes does not look impressive in its first harvest. And the Justice Department is invesigating over antitrust issues. All this has led to massive share declines. Other publications are making fun of our cover story.

Maybe Forbes should improve its "invesigating" [sic] skills.

-jsq