Agent Orange-Like Herbicide Soon To Be Approved By USDA, FDA; Only Obama Can Stop It

This dropped in my email box this morning like a Vietnam-era defoliant: Food and Water Watch, which has been fighting this battle for a long while, notes that

The USDA has already approved [this herbicide], and the EPA is likely to approve the herbicide that will be used on these crops soon. Our last chance is to urge President Obama, who has the authority to block the EPA's decision, to act to protect our health and our agriculture.

That's right. President Obama, Dog help us, is our last hope to stop approval of herbicides made to be used on "[c]orn and soybeans genetically engineered to withstand 2,4-D — [which] are on the verge of being approved for use on our food." Here is a general (though not recent) article on the subject. Here is a press release published this week, "Approval of 2,4-D Tolerant Crops Speeds up Agrichemical Treadmill", that has a few more details. Regrettably, Food and Water Watch does not have a standalone web page directly connected with its current petition campaign, but here is the link embedded in my email if you want to try to sign on to the letter to President Obama.

Australian Organic Farmer Loses Livelihood Over GMO‑Contaminated Crops

(Subject changed; it's not clear the farmer is suing. FDN could be clearer on the actual facts on the ground. - SB)

Details are taken from a Food Democracy Now petition:

Organic garden

Right now an important case is being heard halfway around the world in Western Australia about organic farmer Steve Marsh, whose organic field was contaminated by his neighbor’s genetically engineered canola. As a result, Steve lost his organic certification and as much as 70% of his Steve’s farm has been contaminated with Monsanto’s patented genes.

With clever fine print in their seed contracts, Monsanto is not legally liable for their patented genes contaminating an organic farmer’s field due to their "no liability" agreement farmers are forced to sign when they plant Monsanto's GMO seeds.

As a result, Steve’s family’s livelihood has been put at risk. He could literally lose everything.

,,,

Bolds original... after all, it is a promo for a petition and optional contribution. But the problem is agonizingly real for organic farmers everywhere. If Monsanto proceeds as it has to this point, we could literally end up with genetic contamination of every formerly organic crop everywhere.

It is hard to find any absolutes in the world of GMOs. The subject is scientifically complex, the determinations of safety rarely uninfluenced by commercial interest, and the dangers, if any, quite possibly very slow to appear in the food chain. The cases in which published papers opposing GMOs have been outright faked do not help matters. And there's no denying the substance of what Richard Schiffman says in the same article: whatever the problems in GMOs themselves, the worst thing about them is what they enable in the way of pesticide‑heavy agriculture using repeated dousing of crops to keep them bug-free.

Personally, I'm not happy with R=====p™ or R=====p‑Ready™ crops. It seems to me that the following is only fair, no matter what Monsanto may wish:

• Foods made with GMOs should be labeled in all cases. That way, the consumer has a choice if s/he has an opinion.
• Producers of GMO technology should be strictly liable for contamination of nearby organic crops, as GMO contamination renders formerly organic produce valueless.
• Research on the safety of GMO technology should continue aggressively in an unbiased setting, which probably means not in a country in which GMOs are already heavily deployed (US, India, etc.).

Will that make a difference? Likely not. My best guess is that this sucker is going forward no matter what anyone does to hold it back. Welcome to your future... just remember, you have no say in it.

---

(I found quite a bit of background info on the blog Food Politics by Marion Nestle, NYU professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health.)

How Do We Get Out Of This Chicken-S#!t Outfit?

Fair warning... if you enjoy eating chicken (it's not my thing, but people's tastes vary), reading this article will cure you of that fondness for good and all:

USDA takes its bad idea of speeding up chicken inspection lines and makes it worse.

Try Monsanto Tumor-Ready™ Corn... Thousands Of Rats Can't Be Wrong!

Once more there's something for foodies to think about when we shop. Via ellroon, from Truth-Out, French Study Finds Tumors and Organ Damage in Rats Fed Monsanto Corn. California has a ballot proposition, Prop. 37 (which Monsanto is fighting), that would require labels on genetically engineered foods. Texas has... um, the corn in stores looks pitiful here this year anyway; I haven't had any this season.

Welcome, Americans, to the new, genetically enhanced version of that old game show, You Bet Your Life! Look: I don't have time or resources to present a fully researched article on GM crop failures, development of pesticide-resistant insects, development of super-weeds, undesired cross-pollination of non-GMO crops by nearby GMO crops, and now... apparently... the emergence of tumor-inducing agents in the GMO food crops themselves or the associated GMO pesticides/weedkillers/etc. But the information is out there to anyone conversant with Google search.

We can either meet the undeniably hostile lawsuit-driven forcible introduction of this company's increasingly clearly dangerous products head-on, or we can watch every other variety of the same plant become hybridized with potentially pathological genetic modifications. All agriculture is in danger. Ask your grocer to carry known organic produce. If they are unwilling to go that far, ask them at least to avoid carrying unlabeled genetically engineered produce. And if you're alive next year, remember to ask them again, because the GMO demons never go away.

Mitt Rmoney And Monsanto: With A Combination Like That, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Palmer's pigweed,
Roundup™-resistant

ellroon points us to an article by Mother Jones's food/ag writer, Tom Philpott. Philpott tells a story of Rmoney, Bain, Monsanto, greed, criminal dumping of toxic chemicals, and superweeds that are Roundup™‑Ready™‑Resistant^(™?). Go ahead and read it; it will make you want to switch to exclusively organically grown produce... that is, if you can find any in this GMO-polluted world...

UPDATE: Enfant, in comments, led me to several related articles. Here are two that I consider well worth your time:

• ThinkProgress: Romney And Bain Boosted Agriculture Giant Monsanto In Spite Of Toxic Past
• The Nation: Mitt Romney, Monsanto Man

The harder you look, the deeper the evil that Mittens represents.

AFTERTHOUGHT: in comparing available ag processes for producing food, I cannot say unequivocally that conventional agriculture (using chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizer) is wholly bad. I eat a certain amount of conventionally grown produce, either because a similar organically grown item is too expensive or is not grown within, say, 100 miles of Houston. (Search for "locavore" for more info on eating locally grown produce... you'll be glad you did.) But I am altogether NOT forgiving of genetically modified organisms (GM or GMO): they have the potential to be hazardous to your health and to the very practices of agriculture that the world's livelihood depends on. When the information is available... and since the presidency of GeeDubya Bush, it has NOT always been required on labels... I avoid GMOs at all costs. Maybe you should, too. Do your own research. Think it over.

'Monsanto Rider' Slipped Into 2013 Ag Bill

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Biotech) wants to kill us all. Actually this bought-and-paid-for congressman for the biotech industry just wants us... and the courts and the USDA... to be rendered incapable of saving ourselves from pretty much anything Monsanto or any other biotech firm wants farmers to plant. Here's Alexis Baden-Mayer at TruthOut:

...

A so-called "Monsanto rider," quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation's food supply.

Unless the Senate or a citizen's army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.

...

If you like your frankenfood with components you were never engineered to digest, let this pass. Otherwise, sign one of the petitions listed in Ms. Baden-Mayer's post.

(H/T SouthernDragon at FDL.)

UPDATE: all the action links in the FDL article are scrambled. Try these: Organic Consumers Association, Center for Food Safety, FoodDemocracyNow!, the Alliance for Natural Health USA.