Posts Tagged ‘USDA’
Organic Showdown in Texas! OCA Political Director Arrested
By Organic Consumers Assn. May 1, 2014
“When a government agency, the National Organic Program, that pretends to represent the organic community instead represents USDA bureaucrats and corporate profiteers, it’s time for organic consumers and our allies to rise up and take back control over organic standards and practices.” – Ronnie Cummins, national director, Organic Consumers Association
On Tuesday (April 29) this week, OCA political 
director Alexis Baden-Mayer was hauled off in handcuffs when she refused to end the Organic Consumers Association’s protest of illegally made changes to the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) policy for approving and removing non-organic materials from organics.
including video
The Food Industry’s War on US Health- and more
more good articles from Food Freedom News:
The Global Food Economy: Peak Food, Social Unrest, and Bailed-Out Credit-Junkies
By Zero Hedge
Beginning with Malthus’ warning to the world and the Great Irish famine, David McWilliams (of Punk Economics) provides his typically succinct, profoundly fascinating, and graphically pleasing insights on the state of the global food economy. “What happens…
The Food Industry’s War on US Health
Uploaded by ICTer4life
In this 5-part video, Peter Jennings of ABC World News Tonight explores the murky connections between the FDA, USDA (and other regulatory agencies) and powerful food corporations, allowing for mass deployment of junk food leading to declining…
US Staple Crop System Failing from GM and Monoculture
By Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji
Resilience, yields, pesticide use, and genetic diversity, all worse than Non-GM Europe. A new study shows that the US Midwest staple crop system – predominantly genetically modified (GM) – is falling…
GM Cancer Warning Can No Longer Be Ignored
By Prof Peter Saunders and Dr Mae-Wan Ho
The latest findings of cancers and deaths from GM maize and Roundup herbicide are the result of the most in-depth long-term toxicology study ever done on GM…
USDA Was Storing Monsanto’s Unapproved GM Wheat in Seed Vault
• 30Jun2013 Food Freedom News
By Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton 
Activist Post
How did genetically modified wheat escape and taint the fields of American farmers? The unsettling case remains unexplained, but traces back to a USDA seed vault.
According a recent article in the Denver Post, the unapproved strain of genetically modified (GM) wheat that tainted fields in Oregon and prompted a lawsuit from farmers was, in fact, being stored in a government seed bank in Fort Collins, Colorado.
This location is the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NGCRP), operated by the USDA on the Colorado State University campus and formerly known as the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL). It sits nearby the USDA’s Crop Research Laboratory. The NGCRP serves a seed bank and “a repository for animal genetic resources in the form of semen and plant genetic resources in the form of graftable buds or in vitro plantlets.”
This facility began storing Monsanto’s GM wheat strains starting in 2004, but it claims to have destroyed them as of January of 2012. Did this USDA facility play a role in the escape of unapproved GM wheat?
Ed Curlett, a spokesperson for the USDA, said, “Whatever seed Monsanto sent to the repository was incinerated.” That agency’s claim is currently being investigated for validation. But, where there’s smoke, there’s typically fire.
Reuters obtained documents indicating that the USDA’s National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation took possession of “at least 43 physical containers of Monsanto’s so-called ‘Roundup Ready’ wheat in late 2004 and early 2005.”
This included ‘more than 1,000 different unique varieties or lines’ of the GM wheat, which would help to explain how the Oregon fields had been tainted with a different variety than Monsanto was reportedly testing during its field trials from 1997-2005 in at least 16 states. Testing in Oregon, where the tainted wheat was found, reportedly ceased in 2001 and involved Spring wheat while unapproved strains of GM Winter wheat were discovered.
Farmers and Consumer Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Genetically Engineered Alfalfa Approval
March 18, 2011 – Center For Food Safety
“Roundup Ready” Alfalfa Will Increase Pesticide Use and Cause Grave Harm to Environment and Organic Industry
USDA Failures Guarantee Transgenic Contamination, Creation of More Superweeds
Today, attorneys for the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), arguing that the agency’s recent unrestricted approval of genetically engineered (GE), “Roundup Ready” Alfalfa was unlawful. The GE crop is engineered to be immune to the herbicide glyphosate, which Monsanto markets as Roundup. USDA data show that 93% of all the alfalfa planted by farmers in the U.S. is grown without the use of any herbicides. With the full deregulation of GE alfalfa, USDA estimates that up to 23 million more pounds of toxic herbicides will be released into the environment each year.
“USDA has once again failed to provide adequate oversight of a biotech crop,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “This reckless approval flies in the face of overwhelming evidence that GE alfalfa threatens the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as significant harm to the environment. APHIS has refused to apply and enforce the law and instead has chosen to bow to the wishes of the biotech industry.”
This is the second case challenging the legality of USDA’s handling of GE alfalfa. In 2007, in another case brought by CFS, a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of the engineered crop violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of Roundup. The case resulted in USDA undertaking a court-ordered four-year study of GE alfalfa’s impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Remarkably, it marked the first time USDA had ever undertaken such a study, known as an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), in over 15 years of approving GE crops for commercial production. While USDA worked on the EIS, GE alfalfa remained unlawful to plant or sell, a ban that remained in place despite Monsanto appealing the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
USDA Decision On GE Alfalfa Leaves Door Open For Contamination, Rise Of Superweeds
Update: see more links at end
Center For Food Safety January 27, 2011
ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE
CENTER ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO USDA’S FLAWED ASSESSMENT
The Center for Food Safety criticized the announcement today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers USDA acknowledged in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). On a call today with stakeholders, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the concerns surrounding purity and access to non-GE seed, yet the Agency’s decision still places the entire burden for preventing contamination on non-GE farmers, with no protections for food producers, consumers and exporters.
“We’re disappointed with USDA’s decision and we will be back in court representing the interest of farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment.”
On Monday, the Center sent an open letter to Secretary Vilsack calling on USDA to base its decision on sound science and the interests of farmers, and to avoid rushing the process to meet the marketing timelines or sales targets of Monsanto, Forage Genetics or other entities.
CFS also addressed several key points that were not properly assessed in the FEIS, among them were: Read the rest of this entry »
End Corporate Price Fixing in Dairy, Help Farmers Survive
Today in Madison, Wisconsin dairy farmers from across America are coming together2 to tell stories of price manipulation, antitrust violations and more, that have ultimately led to the loss of their herds, their farms, their livelihoods and in some cases even their own lives.
It’s time to take on corporate power in our food supply. Stand with farmers today to tell the Department of Justice that enough is enough.
For the past 18 months America’s dairy farmers have faced their worst crisis since the Great Depression3 while at the same time, giant dairy processors and co-ops have raked in record profits.
While dairy farmers have suffered historic low prices in 2009, their dairy processors and the “farmer-owned” co-ops that are supposed to offer them a fair price, have been skimming off all the profits. In 2009, Dean Foods profits soared to $76.2 million, more than 254% higher than 2008.4 During this same time, farmers have been taking on record debt, with a 100 head dairy farm losing more than $10,000 per month on average.5
Countless pleas for justice and numerous attempts to remedy the situation have failed.
Why?
Much of this inequity in the dairy industry can be traced directly to the excessive consolidation in the sector, which has bred the same type of corruption that we have recently witnessed in many other sectors of our economy and society.6
USDA downplays own scientist’s research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide
Sure, the crops are genetically engineered to withstand Roundup; but what about the soil?
by Tom Laskawy April 20, 2010 Grist.org
What would happen if a USDA scientist discovered that one of the most commonly used pesticides on the planet with a reputation for having saved millions of tons of US soil from erosion was — rather than a soil savior — a soil killer?
That, to quote a certain paranormal expert, would be bad. And yet, it’s true.
This news came to the fore thanks to a recently published must-read article from Reuters on how government regulators are “dropping the ball” on agricultural biotechnology. It begins with the story of USDA scientist Dr. Robert Kremer. Kremer has spent the last fifteen years looking at Monsanto’s blockbuster broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate (aka RoundUp), the most commonly used pesticide in the world and the companion to Monsanto’s possibly monopolistic RoundupReady lines of genetically engineered seeds.
While exact figures are a closely guarded secret thanks to the USDA’s refusal to update its pesticide use database after 2007, estimates suggest upwards of 200 million pounds of glyphosate were dumped on fields and farms in the US in 2008 alone. That’s almost double the amount used in 2005.
Glyphosate has a reputation as the “safest” of all the agricultural herbicides and has become the primary means of weed control in industrial agriculture. While being the best of an extremely nasty bunch may be the faintest of praise, the USDA relies on this perception, which has been fueled by industry and government research indicating that the chemical dissipates quickly and shows low toxicity (as poisons go, that is) to humans.
The claim of “millions of tons of soil saved” relates to the soil that would have otherwise been lost to erosion without glyphosate’s central role in chemical no-till farming techniques. Indeed, experts such as Dr. Michael Shannon, a program director at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, as well as other USDA scientists, make this anti-erosion claim the core argument in favor of the widespread use of the chemical.
Even so, glyphosate has been under attack from several quarters of late. Research indicates that, while glyphosate on its own may be relatively “safe,” it is actually quite toxic in combination with the other (supposedly “inert”) ingredients in commercial preparations of the herbicide, i.e. the stuff that farmers actually spray on their fields.
And of course, there is the frightening spread of superweeds that glyphosate can no longer kill. It’s to the point that thousands of acres in the South have been abandoned to resistant strains of giant pigweed.
Enter Dr. Kremer. His work, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of European Agronomy, further tarnishes glyphosate’s golden status. He has found that glyphosate’s side-effects in the ground are far more severe than previously thought. As he described it to me, the use of glyphosate causes:
- damage to beneficial microbes in the soil increasing the likelihood of infection of a crop by soil pathogens
- interference with nutrient uptake by the plant
- reduced efficiency of symbiotic nitrogen fixation
- overall lower-than-expected plant productivity
Mainstream Science Questions GMO Safety and Lack of Testing
BY CAREY GILLAM, Reuters
Are US regulators dropping the ball when it comes to biocrops?
COLUMBIA, MISSOURI — Robert Kremer, a US government microbiologist who studies Midwestern farm soil, has spent two decades analyzing the rich dirt that yields billions of bushels of food each year and helps the US retain its title as breadbasket of the world.
India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, blocked the release of a genetically modified eggplant made by Monsanto. — Reuters
Mr. Kremer’s lab is housed at the University of Missouri and is literally in the shadow of Monsanto Auditorium, named after the $11.8-billion-a-year agricultural giant Monsanto Co. Based in Creve Coeur, Missouri, the company has accumulated vast wealth and power creating chemicals and genetically altered seeds for farmers worldwide.
But recent findings by Mr. Kremer and other agricultural scientists are raising fresh concerns about Monsanto’s products and the Washington agencies that oversee them. The same seeds and chemicals spread across millions of acres of US farmland could be creating unforeseen problems in the plants and soil, this body of research shows.
Mr. Kremer, who works for the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is among a group of scientists who are turning up potential problems with glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and the most widely used weed-killer in the world.
“This could be something quite big. We might be setting up a huge problem,” said Mr. Kremer, who expressed alarm that regulators were not paying enough attention to the potential risks from biotechnology on the farm, including his own research.
Concerns range from worries about how nontraditional genetic traits in crops could affect human and animal health to the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds.
U.S. Ranks in Top 5 in Worst Food Safety Culprits
Figure 4. Comparison of the accumulated number of food alerts and the transgressor indices.
A new international food safety monitoring tool has been developed to track food safety violations by country, and the results do not look good for the U.S., which ranks among the top five most dangerous countries in food safety.
by Kristen Ridley March 18, 2010 Change.org
A new international food safety monitoring tool has been developed to track food safety offenses by country, and the results don’t look good for the U.S. It joins China, Turkey, Iran, and Spain as the five countries with the worst records of food safety.
The new tool uses massive amounts of food recall data collected from 2003 to 2008 to make it’s calculations, and it’s all available online in a user-friendly format for anyone to see, even if it is still obviously geared towards researchers. According to one of the tool’s developers, D. P. Naughton, “No other system can reflect the complexity of this information in a snapshot form.” This advanced level of food safety analysis should prove particularly useful to developing countries, many of which still don’t have comprehensive food safety programs.
Wake-up Call 