Tag Archives: United States Department of Agriculture

Feds Delay Approval Of New Monsanto Crops Over Environmental Concerns

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End The Lie May 15 2013

Biotech giant Monsanto faced a surprising setback after federal authorities refused to approve a new generation of genetically-engineered crops that could survive an unprecedented use of herbicides.

Monsanto was awarded a big win on Monday by the United States Supreme Court, but another federal ruling made only days earlier brought some comparatively bad news to the biotech giant.

The US Department of Agriculture announced Friday that they’ve ordered additional environmental impact statements (EIS) for herbicide-resistant crops that have been waiting for federal approval. Now Monsanto and the chemical company Dow will have to sit anxiously and await the results of those assessments before they are given the go-ahead to sell genetically-engineer plants that have raised serious environmental issues.

At stake is the future for a variety of corn, soybean and cotton crops that have been genetically-engineered to resist two heavy-duty pesticides, namely 2,4-D and dicamba. Both Monsanto and Dow have been hoping to get the go-ahead to sell these crops, but ordering further testing will set the release date back to perhaps 2015.

A number of farmers and environmentalists have opposed the selling of crops resistant to these chemicals, because the result could likely mean dousing fields with pesticides in unprecedented levels.

“The danger that 2,4-D and dicamba pose is a real threat to crops…nearly every food crop,” Steve Smith, director of agriculture at Red Gold, told Reuters last year.

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Anthony Gucciardi ~ Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide As EU Bans It

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Natural Society May 12 2013

Corporate politics is business as usual inside the United States, as I am once again shocked to report the EPA has sided with industry lobbyists over public health in approving a highly dangerous pesticide that the European Union recently decided to ban over fears of environmental devastation. Not only have neonicotinoid pesticides been linked repeatedly to mass bee deaths, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but the continued use of such pesticides threatens other aspects of nature (and humans) as well.

What’s even more amazing is that the decision not only comes after the EU publicly discussed the major dangers surrounding the use of the pesticides, but after the USDA released a report surrounding the continued honeybee deaths and the related effects — a report in which they detailed pesticides to be a contributing factor. Just the impact on the honeybees alone, and we now know that these pesticides are killing aquatic life and subsequently the birds that feed upon them, amounts to a potential $200 billion in global damages per year. We’re talking about the devastation of over 100 crops, from apples to avocados and plums.

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Mike Adams ~ Not Even Good Enough For Dog Food: Imported Food From China Loaded With Chemicals, Dyes, Pesticides And Fake Ingredients

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NaturalNews May 10 2013

Do you really know what’s in all the food you’re eating that’s imported from China? If you don’t, you’re actually in good company: The FDA only inspects 1% – 2% of all the food imported from China, so they don’t know either. Even when they inspect a shipment, they rarely test it for heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs or other toxic contaminants.

Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute, added emphasis to this point as he testified this week in The House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, saying, “We don’t trust, for good reason, the Chinese to supply ingredients for our dog and cat food. Why should we trust Chinese exporters for the food that we are feeding our children and families?”

It’s a good question. Especially when, as Kastel adds, Chinese food is being routinely found to contain “unapproved chemicals, dyes, pesticides and outright fraud (fake food).”

Heavily contaminated food from China

As Natural News has already reported, food from China is frequently found to contain alarming levels of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury) and other contaminants. Politically, China is a communist dictatorship where freedom of speech is completely outlawed. Environmental regulations are virtually never enforced. The culture is one of total deception where lying, cheating, stealing or committing fraud to get ahead is considered completely acceptable — because that’s how government is operated there. The moral decay of China is directly reflected in the alarming dishonesty of the food supply. (Yes, a country’s food exports will reflect its cultural and political philosophies. Freedom produces healthy food. Oppression and communism produces deceptive, deadly food.)

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Alert: Monsanto Rider Slips Through Senate, Hour Glass Running…

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Activist Post March 23 2013

The rider (Sec. 735) that would prevent courts from halting illegally planted GM crops (sometimes courts find fault with USDA-approved GM fields) slipped into the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill HR 933 blind-sided an angry populace last week, giving little time to voice complaint before it was to go through the Senate.

On Wednesday morning, HR 933 passed with the new rider dubbed by activists as the Monsanto Protection Act therein. The rider has nothing to do with proposed government spending to keep it running for the next six months.

Alliance for Natural Health (ANH-USA) reported earlier:

Once the CR passes the Senate, it will move to the House and Senate conference committee to resolve any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Since this rider was not in the House version of the bill, there’s a slim possibility the rider will not be in the final duly passed version.

The general consensus on the Hill is that once the Senate acts, the House Appropriations Committee leadership is prepared to take the modified Senate CR directly to the House floor, possibly as early as Thursday. This is why urgent grassroots action is required to ensure that does not happen.

If this “must-pass” bill gets signed into law, it would be the point of no return for unhindered Monsanto havoc. They would trump federal court power and courts would not be able to use authority to stop sales or planting of any illegal or hazardous genetically modified crops. Strange for biotech giants to want this rider, as the USDA already gives them unheeded approval without safety testing of their crops. Rider (Sec. 735) clinches Monsanto power – if the USDA or court system wants to halt GM crops or revoke approval, they cannot. It’s also an open backdoor to whisk in future approvals.

This action is detrimental to farmers who want to fight against Monsanto’s patent infringement lawsuits, those for the preservation of organic crops against GM contamination, and our export economy as so many other countries have adopted GM bans. This Monsanto-driven rider is simply an industry ploy to continue to plant GM crops even when a court of law has found they were approved illegally – But it’s being voted on urgently.

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Ethan A. Huff ~ ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ To Be Voted On By Congress – Take Action Now To Fight Back Against Biotech Tyranny

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NaturalNews March 21 2013 (Thanks, Marie)

The U.S. Congress is right now moving forward with the passage of the 2013 Agricultural Appropriations Bill (AAB), also known as H.R. 933, which currently contains an added “rider” that would allow agricultural biotechnology corporations like Monsanto to bypass the legal system in approving, growing and selling illegal genetically-modified (GM) seeds and crops.

Dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act by an unofficial cohort of family-scale farmers and health freedom advocates, the so-called Farmer Assurance Provision of the Agricultural Appropriations Bill threatens to undo constitutional guidelines that allow the justice system to rightly intervene in cases where the safety of illegally-approved GMOs are called into question.

If passed, the Farmer Assurance Provision would basically allow GMO purveyors like Monsanto and BASF to continue marketing and planting GM seeds found to have been illegally approved by federal regulatory bodies. Currently, federal courts can enact a moratorium while a case is in progress, but the Farmer Assurance Provision would nix this power and allow the biotechnology industry to continue business as normal without restraint.

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Heather Callaghan ~ USDA Got Brand New Pathogen Warning Before Deregulating GM Alfalfa

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Activist Post February 20 2013 

Unidentified viral-fungal-like pathogen crosses into multiple kingdoms: Plant & Animal/Human. Rarely, if ever, seen in nature before.

Following a 6 year approval battle, the USDA fully deregulated Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa in January 2011. A week later, they partially deregulated GM sugar beets. This occurred despite Secretary of Agriculture’s Tom Vilsack’s knowledge of a stark warning letter by Dr. Don M. Huber, Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology, Purdue University two weeks prior, who found a link between the modified organisms and the proliferation of the new pathogen. Huber knew about its presence in Roundup Ready soy and corn and sought to hold off the GE alfalfa calling the situation an “emergency.”

Dr. Huber said (video link below) “we don’t know what it is” – it’s a new entity first noticed by veterinarians in the late ’90s, new to science. It’s not a virus, although similar, actually smaller in size and like a fungus that spreads like a virus. It’s contained in Roundup Ready (RR) and Roundup sprayed plants and feed and bizarrely affects all farmland animals often with infertility and spontaneous abortions – an inter-species syndrome that could be the first of its kind.

So it’s not just a side-effect of endocrine-disrupting pesticides or transmission of genetic material – it’s a new pathogen the USDA ignored. There is increasing evidence it’s already affecting humans with infertility and reproductive problems, but the USDA filed the warning in the garbage.

An excerpt from Huber’s letter:

We are informing the USDA of our findings at this early stage, specifically due to your pending decision regarding approval of alfalfa. Naturally, if either the Roundup Ready gene or Roundup itself is a promoter or co-factor of this pathogen, then such approval could be a calamity.For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks. Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.

Please read more about Huber’s discovery and the fallout from Mike Ludwig of Occupy Monsanto.

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Alex Pietrowski ~ The GMO Lie Threatens Life On Earth Yet Some Resist

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Activist Post February 13 2013

In 62 United States counties, citizens have the right to know if their food has been genetically altered, and more communities throughout the US (in some 37 states) are continuing to fight against unlabeled GM foods. The American population continues to learn of the harm GM is doing to our farmlands, to our bodies, and to the Earth’s biodiversity. Yet, Monsanto and other Bio Tech companies continue to submit new GM crops for approval with the USDA and the FDA, including the “Botox” GMO apple and GM’ed salmon.

Food regulators have been approving GMO foods for over 20 years, with very little independent research conducted to understand the long-term effects that GMO will have on humans and the environment. Thankfully, more of such research is now being undertaken by universities, independent scientists, and, the regulators. For example, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently revealed that several commercial GMO products include fragments of the viral gene called Gene VI.

…many viral genes function to disable their host in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus (Dasgupta et al. 2001). Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant potential for harm. (source)

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Lisa Garber ~ Scientist: Top Selling Weed Killer – Monsanto’s Roundup – Linked To Infertility

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Natural Society | January 9 2013

Monsanto has made a pretty penny over the last several decades thanks to its top-selling herbicide, Roundup, and cash crops genetically modified to withstand heavy doses of the chemical, such as Roundup Ready corn, soy, and cotton. Meanwhile, Roundup’s key ingredient glyphosate has ravaged the earth, our food chain, and our bodies, and is even causing infertility among the masses. Its effects haven’t gone unnoticed.

Purdue University professor emeritus Dr. Don Huber addressed the dangers of glyphosate to American and European officials in 2011. His concerns centered on an electron microscopic pathogen which “appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings.” In a letter to US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Huber added that preliminary experiments have reproduced the pathogen’s link to miscarriages.

Vilsack purportedly received Huber’s letter and, despite the available mountain of evidence just one click away, encouraged of Huber “submission of any data or studies in support of his concerns.”

Apparently, none of the scientific, published evidence of glyphosate-induced infertility, sterility, birth defects, Parkinson’s, obesity, superweeds, and water pollution were convincing enough to keep the USDA from snuggling down next to Monsanto on a bed of dirty money just 11 days later. Despite Huber’s explicit pleas to delay deregulation of Roundup Ready crops—which would be, in his words, “a calamity”—the USDA went through with deregulation.

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Ethan A. Huff ~ Human Genes Engineered Into Experimental GMO Rice Being Grown in Kansas

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Natural News | May 2 2012

Unless the rice you buy is certified organic, or comes specifically from a farm that tests its rice crops for genetically modified (GM) traits, you could be eating rice tainted with actual human genes. The only known GMO with inbred human traits in cultivation today, a GM rice product made by biotechnology company Ventria Bioscience is currently being grown on 3,200 acres in Junction City, Kansas — and possibly elsewhere — and most people have no idea about it.

Since about 2006,Ventria has been quietly cultivating rice that has been genetically modified (GM) with genes from the human liver for the purpose of taking the artificial proteins produced by this “Frankenrice” and using them in pharmaceuticals. With approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),Ventria has taken one of the most widely cultivated grain crops in the world today, and essentially turned it into a catalyst for producing new drugs.

Originally, the cultivation of this GM rice, which comes in three approved varieties (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/biotech_ea_permits.html), was limited to the laboratory setting. But in 2007,Ventriadecided to bring the rice outdoors. The company initially tried to plant the crops in Missouri, but met resistance fromAnheuser-Buschand others, which threatened to boycott all rice from the state in the event that Ventria began planting its rice within state borders (http://todayyesterdayandtomorrow.wordpress.com).

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Anthony Gucciardi ~ Top 10 Healthy Yet Cheap Organic Foods

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NaturalSociety | October 24 2012

Cheap organic foods? In the face of global economic struggle, the issue of personal finance is at the heart of the average consumer. But do you really have to shed an exorbitant amount of your money to purchase organic foods over conventional? The answer is no, and there is a surprisingly large amount of high quality organic foods that are quite cheap — even when considering low income families. Even families on food stamps have been able to live entirely on an organic diet on the foodstamp income alone.

There’s even a documentary about it called Foodstamped, which is hosted free online. The couple in the film eats a 100% organic diet on as little as $40 a week. There are keys to keeping costs down such as buying from farmers markets when possible and always buying whole food options as opposed to pre-made or processed meals, but I am going to give you a list of 10 key items that are really quite cheap. In fact, they purchased many of them in the film to keep their costs down. When you get the opportunity, you can even store up on some of these items in bulk and cut costs even further — not to mention that many of these foods are capable of acting as long-term storeable foods.

Here are the top 10 healthy yet organic real food items that won’t break your budget:

1. Brown Rice

Brown rice has a lengthy shelf life when stored properly in a sealed container, and can make for a full meal simply by eating it alone or adding in some of the vegetables in this list. Organic brown rice when purchased in bulk, or at least not from pre-packaged bags, can be extremely cheap while able to be incorporated into many meals.

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Ethan A. Huff ~ Americans Eat More Than Their Body Weight In GMOs Every Year, Study Shows

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Natural News | October 18 2012

The consumer advocacy organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) has put out a new paper that estimates the average person’s yearly consumption of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). And based on the figures, which EWG admits are very likely understated, the average person consumes more than their own body weight’s worth of GMOs every single year, a shocking reality with unknown, long-term health consequences.

For their study, EWG researchers compiled data from 2011 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data sheets on average per capita consumption of various GM foods, including corn-based sweeteners like corn syrup, salad oils, and various other “corn products” like corn oil and corn meal. They then analyzed these figures based on the percentages of each of the crops used to make these products that are genetically engineered in the U.S.

The average adult in America, it turns out, weighs 179 pounds, and consumes an average of 193 pounds of GM corn-based products and salad oils every year. And when various other GMOs are added into the mix that were not included as part of the original study — in addition to corn and sugar beets, soybean oil and other soy-based products, conventional papaya, and canola oil are all widely consumed foods of GM origin as well — the contrast between body weight and GMO consumption widens even more significantly.

“From these figures, EWG calculated that the average American annually consumes genetically engineered foods in these quantities: 68 pounds of beet sugar, 58 pounds of corn syrup, 38 pounds of soybean oil and 29 pounds of corn-based products, for a total of 193 pounds,” says EWG.

With more new GMOs on the way, consumption patterns expected to increase dramatically

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Mike Adams ~ How ‘Scientific Poisoners’ Threaten The Future Of Life On Planet Earth

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Natural News | October 15 2012

There is a battle being waged for your mind. To the victor comes influence over your beliefs, you purchase decisions, and even your values. On one side of the battlefield are the so-called ‘scientific’ poisoners, who are really just proxy scientists and propagandists promoting corporate interests. These ‘scientists’ want to convince you that there’s no such thing as a dangerous pesticide. That GMOs are harmless, in fact healthful. That autism isn’t caused by any possibly related to chemical exposure, and that vaccines are a scientific gift to humanity, without which we would have all died from infectious disease.

There is no chemical the scientific poisoners do not think is safe to put on your skin or ingest into your body. Hydrofluosilicic acid — also mistakenly called “fluoride” — is perfectly safe to drink, they say. Chemotherapy is good for you and doesn’t make your hair fall out or damage your kidneys. Psychiatric drugs are more important than vitamins. Pharmaceuticals should be your nutrition! And your immune system is incomplete without vaccine intervention at the tip of a needle.

This “cult of scientism” believes that nature is a failure. Your body is a failure. That nothing good happens without chemical intervention. Crops won’t grow unless they’re GMO. The world will starve without bt insecticides being engineered into the kernels of corn. Humans would be extinct if not for vaccines and pharmaceuticals. There is no God. Instead, we should worship Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Merck, Pfizer, and all the other corporate giants that produce the chemicals we’re supposed to consume.

The “naturalists” seek to protect life

On the other side of this battleground are the naturalists. The protectors of life. People who have a home garden and know the value of open-pollinated seeds. People who eat real food, organic food, grown without toxic chemical pesticides, fungicides and synthetic fertilizer.

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Shepard Ambellas ~ Times So Tough Some Families Schedule ‘No Food Days’

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theintelhub.com | October 13 2012

As men play with god-like powers such as weather modification, parts of the world suffer from drought and famine.

Coincidence or Not?

In some parts of the US and the world crop yields are at all time lows not seen since the 1970′s.

In fact, parts of the country have also sustained record drought levels in 2012.

SouthCoastToday.com reports;

CHICAGO — Drought damage to corn and soybean fields in the United States, the world’s top grower and exporter, is eroding supplies of the nation’s two largest crops to below year-earlier consumption levels for the first time since 1974.

The government is expected to say today that the U.S. corn harvest and inventories on Sept. 1 will be a combined 11.604 billion bushels, less than the 12.33 billion consumed and exported last year, according to a Bloomberg survey of 31 analysts.

Soybean supplies will be 2.932 billion bushels, below the 3.157 billion used in 2011.

Supplies failed to top usage from the previous year only twice since 1960 for corn and five times for soybeans, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

Record heat in June and July sparked the worst drought since 1956, sending corn and soybeans prices to record highs.

Morgan Stanley predicted corn may rally 35 percent in a year, while Barclays Plc sees soybeans gaining 16 percent.

Higher costs for dairies, grain processors and livestock producers helped send global food prices in September to the highest since March, United Nations data show.

Our Planet is Being Terraformed

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