Hate to say I told you so, but...

Photo credit: itbeganinAfrica.com

Awhile back, I wrote a post about why the Gates Foundation worries me. At the time, some folks suggested I was anti-technology and showing my Luddite side a bit too obviously. Others suggested the analogy I made, between the Gates Foundation's work eliminating malaria and its interest in promoting GMO crops as a solution to food production problems in Africa and India, wasn't valid.

Well, to all those doubters out there...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Remember you heard it here first, but check out this editorial from the Seattle Times:

Bill Gates' Support of GM Crops is Wrong Approach for Africa

Trying to fight my yetzer cynique...

In Jewish tradition, we learn about the yetzer tov and the yetzer ra, the good inclination and the bad inclination. Both are locked in constant conflict, each trying to dictate our actions and reactions. I submit there's a third inclination, the yetzer cynique, or cynical inclination. I must admit I have more trouble not giving in to my yetzer cynique than I do resisting my yetzer ra (I'm basically a good person, after all, however boring that sounds).

So imagine the difficulty I have containing the old yetzer cynique when I read this:

MEDIA ADVISORY

Launch of Major New Food and Ag Policy Initiative

Long-Term Initiative Funded By Eight Leading Foundations

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 27, 2011 – On May 3, eight of the world’s leading foundations will launch a major new initiative designed to impact food and agriculture policies on a global scale.  

The world will have more than 9 billion people to feed by 2050, with two-thirds of them living in cities, putting greater demands on our agricultural and environmental resources. Current food and agriculture policies cannot meet the needs of this future without drastic consequences for our environment, health and rural communities.   

This initiative is funded by Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and The Walton Family Foundation.

Please join us for a press conference detailing how the initiative will engage on food and agriculture policy on May 3, 2011 at 10 a.m. at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Who:    Deborah Atwood, Executive Director

Dan Glickman, Co-Chair, former USDA Secretary under President Bill Clinton

Gary Hirshberg, Co-Chair, President and “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield Farm

Jim Moseley, Co-Chair, former USDA deputy secretary under President George W. Bush

Emmy Simmons, Co-Chair, former assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade at U.S. AID

Todd Barker, Partner, Meridian Institute

What:  Launch of a new initiative to transform food and agriculture policies

Where: The Fourth Estate, National Press Club

529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, D.C.

When:  Tuesday May 3, 2011, 10 a.m. – 11 a.m.

It sounds good, doesn't it? But I can't help thinking this is just one more instance of the haves taking over food production from the have nots. Given the USDA's conflicted mission: to promote US agribusiness and to safeguard our food supply (guess which one wins out 95% of the time), I question the integrity of any current or former USDA official. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation I've already written about, and their love affair with technology over sustainable socially just solutions (particularly with regard to their advocating GMO crops, esp. in Africa). So much as I'd like to think Bill and Melinda are doing a good thing here, I have serious doubts.

Anyone else's yetzer cynique sending off warning bells?

End the Monsanto monoply

Last year, the Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Agriculture held a series of five hearings investigating anti-competitive practices in the food and agricultural sectors. The hearings were historic and gave a vital opportunity for hundreds of thousands of America’s farmers, agricultural workers and citizens to call for an end to agribusiness’ excessive monopoly power. 

Last December, Food Democracy Now! delivered more than 200,000 citizen comments to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney with your demands to break up the worst abusers.

Nowhere are these abuses more prevalent than in the extreme market share enjoyed by the seed and chemical company Monsanto, which has a virtual stranglehold on seed supplies in crucial sectors that has severely limited farmers' choice in what seeds they can buy. Monsanto’s control of the seed market is so high that 93% of soybeans, 82% of corn, 93% of cotton and 95% of sugarbeets grown in the U.S. contain Monsanto's patented genes.

Not only is this level of market share allowing Monsanto to jack prices up on farmers because there’s no competition, but it also threatens our democracy as Monsanto uses their corporate power to influence our regulatory agencies, like the USDA, EPA and FDA, as well as Congress and the White House.

It’s time to fight back, and the only way to do that is to make sure that the Department of Justice continues their investigation into Monsanto’s anti-competitive business practices.

Legal matters

Last week, the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the USDA challenging the USDA's decision to allow the planting of GM alfalfa. You can read more about it in their joint press release here.

In other legal news, the Iowa state house last week approved a bill that would criminalize secret videotaping of activities on farms, specifically related to the mistreatment of animals. While the ag industry is crying victim here, saying they're being held hostage by PETA and other animal rights groups, the larger issue is that investigations into farm and animal conditions would be illegal, if video was used. The bill could also apply to crops, not just animals. In other words, the makers of Food, Inc., could, under this bill, have been arrested if they'd filmed in Iowa and this bill had been law at the time the film was made. Florida is reportedly also considering a similar bill. The Iowa Senate has yet to weigh in.

If you're an ag company and you're supporting a bill that would make it illegal to video your crops, exactly what are you hiding? Yes, that is a somewhat rhetorical question, but I ask it because I don't personally know a single farmer who'd object to anyone filming their farming practices.

Other thoughts? I'd share more of mine but am posting this while I should be writing program notes. Back to Bartók.

Political activism in 30 seconds

Here are three petitions you can sign, from Change.org: one protests Monsanto's stranglehold on the USDA, one protests GMO crops, and the third demands that President Obama protect our right to buy and eat GMO-free foods.

I know that the Center for Food Safety plans to sue to stop the planting of GMO alfalfa (and GMO sugar beets), but have not heard if they have actually filed their suit yet. You can click on the link to their site here for more info. They also have many more petitions to sign.

Adding your name to a petition, as I once said in an earlier post, is a pretty spineless form of activism, but it's better than nothing. If I hear of more direct ways to get involved, I'll post them.

FYI, these petitions have widgets that you can embed on your Facebook page or blog; at the bottom of each one there's a "Get Widget" link for the embed code. Feel free to pass them along.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

And for all you politicos out there...

who don't think GMO food issues are a burning political issue, read this editorial, from today's Christian Science Monitor.

10 Things You Can Do About GMOs in the Food System

This is a great site I recently discovered, with lots of useful info on a wide spectrum of food issues. Gail Nickel-Kailing, Editor/Co-Publisher of GoodFoodWorld, recently sent out this info in GFW's weekly newsletter:


10 Things You Can Do About GMOs in the Food System


(BTW, #8 on her list should read, "To date, the best way to ensure that you are not consuming GMOs is to buy organic food. The National Organic Program does not allows any GMOs in fresh or processed foods.")

Michael Pollan GMO redux

WNYC interviews Michael Pollan on the latest decisions by the USDA to approve GMO alfalfa, sugar beets and a new kind of GMO corn. As always, Pollan manages to lay open the heart of a very complex issue. His point about the lack of independent research on GMO foods is particularly germane, imo.

Check out the interview here, then scroll down the site to "Dish on GMOs." You can stream it from the site or download it to listen to at your leisure. If you're still confused about why GMOs are such a big problem, or you're trying to convince someone who's skeptical about the brouhaha, Pollan's remarks will provide useful talking/argument points. Plus he's the most articulate spokesperson we have.

Update: Obama Goes Rogue on GMOs

In the past 3 weeks, the Obama administration has chosen to approve three biotech crops: Roundup Ready genetically modified (GMO) alfalfa, Roundup Ready genetically modified (GMO) sugar beets and a new industrial biotech corn for ethanol production. Obama's recent approval of them will allow them to be planted as early as this spring, despite widespread acknowledgement that these crops are certain to contaminate both conventional and organic farmers non-GMO crops. Only last Friday, the USDA's approval of the new industrial biotech corn for ethanol production occurred despite massive outcry from major food companies who know that it will contaminate and possibly ruin the food they sell to you everyday.

Here's a brief recap of the Obama administration's appalling cave to Monsanto and the biotech industry in just the last 3 weeks.

1. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa - Jan. 27th, 2011 - Over the objections of hundreds of thousands of American citizens, the White House approved this unnecessary crop - despite the fact that 93% of alfalfa hay grown in the U.S. does not use herbicides and that genetic contamination with conventional, non-GMO and organic alfalfa threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of family farmers and the food choices of more than 50 million organic consumers.²

2. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO sugar beets - Feb. 4, 2011 - Defying a court order to complete a proper Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) the USDA announced that it is granting a “partial” approval of Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets, giving farmers and seed dealers the clear signal that final approval is right around the corner. By the time the EIS is expected to be complete, sometime in May, farmers will have already started planting their crop for the next year since the USDA says it gave the green light to avert a “sugar shortage” in the U.S. Sugar beets comprise some 54% of U.S. sugar found in everything from soda, other beverages, candy bars³

3. Syngenta’s Enogen Alpha-Amylase Corn for Ethanol - Feb 11, 2011 -  This new GMO amylase corn product contains an enzyme that allegedly allows an increase in ethanol production with a reduction of natural gas and water usage, thus saving ethanol plants money. While caving to the biotech and ethanol industries, the Obama administration basically ignored the concerns of  leading food manufacturers who fear that if this new industrial corn cross-pollinates with or is accidentally mixed with corn used to make food products, it could lead to crumbly corn chips, soggy cereal and a host of other food processing disasters.⁴

Despite being comprised of more than 43 powerful companies such as General Mills, ConAgra Mills, ADM Milling and Quaker Oats, the Obama administration completely dismissed the concerns of the North American Miller’s Association, comprised of some of the largest food manufacturers in U.S. in order to favor the biotech and ethanol corporate agenda, both industries with checkered pasts and products of dubious benefit.

Please take a moment to tell President Obama that you’re outraged over his decision to approve a crop technology that has not lived up to its marketing promises, increasingly harms farmer profitability and has potential negative human health and environmental consequences.

These decisions are a devastating blow to our democracy and the basic rights of farmers to choose how they want to grow food on their land and the rights of consumers who increasingly choose organic and sustainably grown food for its positive health and environmental impacts. 

Let them know that you care about organic integrity by following this link from Food Democracy Now!, then please pass this on. Please join me in telling President Obama that it's time to stand up to Monsanto and reject these GMO crops today!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/update_obama_goes_rogue_on_gmos/?referring_akid=298.92252.fsnfig&source=mailto