Last week, the National Academy of Sciences hosted a summit to discuss “superweeds,” or the widespread problem of herbicide-resistant weeds currently afflicting millions of farm acres across the United States.

Superweeds—the “weeds that man can no longer kill!”—have been in the news for several years. All across the Midwest and Southeast farmers have been photographed and filmed standing in fields surrounded by the giant plants. They bemoan the cost of pesticides and point to industrial rows of crops that don’t have a chance when up against feisty weeds that grow up to three inches a day.

Superweeds have been especially likely to appear alongside genetically engineered (GE) crops, which are engineered to withstand large amounts of pesticide and herbicide use. And these weeds show no sign of going away any time soon.

That’s why scientists and researchers from land-grant universities, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and representatives from several industry and trade groups met at last week’s summit to strategize about the problem.

A few speakers boasted about the efficiency of modern-day farming and the fact that today’s agriculture requires fewer farmers on more acres. But missing from their analysis was the long list of consequences: from degradation of the environment, to health risks from increased chemical use and, ironically, superweeds themselves.

Those who did address the weeds tended not to see them as a result of that impressive modern agriculture. Take Michael Owen, an agronomist from Iowa State University, for instance. In his talk, he contended that superweeds are neither an herbicide problem nor a GE crop problem, per se, but a behavioral problem. This analysis puts the blame on farmers for overusing herbicides. Yet the resistance situation first arose when biotechnology companies pushed herbicides like glyphosate (or Roundup) on farmers as the silver bullet to weed management without educating them on the ramifications of their ubiquitous use. And the practice of using just one herbicide year after year would not have occurred if it weren’t for the aggressive promotion of the Roundup Ready line of GE crops (engineered to tolerate Roundup).

There was some talk of non-chemical solutions by Michael Walsh from the University of Western Australia, who spoke about that country’s serious problem with a weed that has developed resistance to several herbicides. Australian researchers designed a few different weed seed control methods that destroy the seed reserves, eliminating upwards of 95 percent of the seed before it is able to germinate. But it was made very clear by the U.S. farmers attending the summit that going back to traditional methods, like cultivation, would be tough. There was little mention of organic weed management techniques such as crop rotation or the use of cover crops.

But exhausting chemical tool after chemical tool in an arms race against herbicide resistant weeds is not only not sustainable, it’s not working. And despite the fact that chemical solutions are the cause of cross-resistance and multiple resistance in weeds, the need for more chemical solutions was still at the forefront of the discussion.

Strikingly missing from the conversation that day was any talk of the next round of GE crops now in the pipeline, like Dow’s 2,4-D corn and Monsanto’s dicamba soybean, which have both been designed to be resistant to more than one herbicide at once. A full 13 out of 20 crops in the queue awaiting USDA’s approval have what are called “stacked herbicide resistance traits.”

These crops, once approved, will likely result in the use of many more gallons of herbicides and the evolution of even more powerful superweeds that will be resistant to many different herbicides—making them harder and harder to manage. Formulating new varieties of crops to withstand applications of harsher chemicals may be business as usual for these scientists and the companies they work for, but it’s an approach that ignores the underlying issue.

The final speaker at the summit was Iowa State University President Steven Leath, who said he believed that using a “land-grant approach” involving public-private partnerships will help solve this complex problem. This approach is not surprising coming from Leath; Iowa State is known for its relationships with corporations (especially Monsanto), and its agronomy department received around half of its funding from private-sector donors from 2006 to 2010. Iowa State’s campus is even home to a Monsanto Student Services Wing in the main agriculture building.

The superweed problem is one that should be attacked with preventative strategies based in weed biology and independent, interdisciplinary creativity. But partnering with biotechnology companies will likely only result in biotech solutions.

We have the opportunity to see superweeds as a wake-up call and a strong argument for pulling agriculture off the chemical treadmill to which it is bound. But to do that, public research—free of private sector influence—must be funded in order to give farmers better alternatives and to shift the focus away from the current chemical arms race against weeds.

Originally published on Grist

Last week the White House released its National Bioeconomy Blueprint  (PDF) which “outlines steps that agencies will take to drive the bioeconomy—economic activity powered by research and innovation in the biosciences—and details ongoing efforts across the Federal government to realize this goal.”

Unfortunately, this new bioeconomy is not as green as the Obama administration is making it out to be. The so-called bioeconomy is dependent primarily on the risky, unregulated field of synthetic biology and the use of unsustainably produced biomass to feed synthetic organisms created by these technologies. The National Bioeconomy Blueprint, while offering little in new substantive policy, causes more harm than good by giving the green light to the growth and profit of the synthetic biology industry without making any real effort to protect people and the environment from the novel risks posed by this emerging technology.

Synthetic biology is an extreme form of genetic engineering involving the writing and rewriting of genetic code and biological systems in order to create novel organisms that have never existed before in nature. Novel organisms created through synthetic biology could escape from the lab and become a new class of invasive species or pump out oil into local waterways. Biotech workers at put at risk if organisms are improperly contained and these synthetic bugs get inside their bodies or are carried home with them on their clothes. Check out this issue brief from Friends of the Earth, Synthetic Biology 101, (PDF) for more information on what exactly these technologies are and the risks synthetic biology pose.

According to Andrew Pollack at the New York Times, “much of what is in the 43-page-report…is a list of government programs that are already under way. So it is not clear what concrete changes, if any, will result.” But while no new major policy initiatives were announced, the Blueprint appears to be a nod of approval for moving full speed ahead for an unregulated and rapidly developing synthetic biology industry.

You may recall that last month, 113 organizations from around the world called for the proper oversight and regulation of synthetic biology in the Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology. This global coalition demanded that the Precautionary Principle be applied to the governance of synthetic biology and that a moratorium be placed on the environmental release and commercial use of synthetic organisms until proper national and international laws have been established to ensure synthetic biology does not harm people or the environment.

Unfortunately, the Obama White House is moving in the exact opposite direction with this new initiative. The National Bioeconomy Blueprint calls for expanded development of “essential bioeconomy technologies” such as synthetic biology and identify points to reduce regulatory barriers for the biotechnology industry. One of the White House’s main strategic objectives is to “unlock the promise of synthetic biology” by making strategic investments in synthetic biology that “have the potential to move the bioeconomy forward in all sectors.”

The Blueprint quotes President Obama’s Bioethics Commission, which recommended back in 2010, (PDF) that federal actions be taken “to ensure that America reaps the benefits of synthetic biology while identifying appropriate ethical boundaries and minimizing identified risks” of synthetic biology. Unfortunately those recommendations, which were publically criticized by Friends of the Earth and 57 other organizations from around the world, looked to self-regulation to guide developments in synthetic biology instead of developing actual laws and regulations that are specifically tailored to the novel risks posed by synthetic biology.

The claim that the government will “minimize identified risks” from synthetic biology sounds great but so far they have failed to even look at these risks. According to a report from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, (PDF) of the $430 million spent by the federal government on synthetic biology between 2005 and 2010, zero projects were identified that focused on risk assessments related to the accidental or intentional release of synthetic organisms from the lab. Instead of truly balancing the potential benefits and risks of synthetic biology, the Bioeconomy Blueprint gives the industry the green light to rush ahead while turning a blind eye to the risks.

The bioeconomy also carries serious socio-economic risks. As the ETC Group highlighted in its brilliant report, the New Biomassters: Synthetic B iology and the Next Assault on Biodiversity and Livelihoods, (PDF) the new bioeconomy is not as green as it seems. The bioeconomy is, in fact, “a red-hot resource grab of the lands, livelihoods, knowledge and resources of peoples in the global South, where most of that biomass is located.” As the report points out, 86 percent of global biomass is located in the tropics and subtropics, and a push for a new bioeconomy, enabled by synthetic biology, will only “accelerate the pace of forest destruction and land acquisition in the South in order to feed the economies of the North.” Biomass, or land on which it is grown, is not an unlimited resource, as the Blueprint seems to assume.

And just last week, a new report was released by the Global Forest Coalition titled Bio-economy Versus Biodiversity, (PDF) which argues how the so-called bioeconomy will have “serious negative impacts…on forests, forest-dependent peoples, and biodiversity.” According to Simone Lovera, Executive Director of the Global Forest Coalition, “the bioeconomy is a massive effort to privatize nature for corporate profit…high-risk technologies like synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and genetically engineered trees will only drive the planetary ecosystem further into crisis.” This report concludes by challenging the Obama administration and other global leaders to “abandon the green sheen of biotechnology and market-based conservation schemes, and to affirm the kinds of biocultural approaches demonstrated by Indigenous Peoples and social movements in the Global South that eschew infinite economic growth for sustainable livelihoods, local living economies, and integration with the natural world.”

The Obama administration had a chance to take the driver’s seat and ensure that synthetic biology does not cause more harm than good. Instead, the White House is sitting in the passenger’s seat while the biotechnology industry speeds ahead without proper regulation, safety assessment, or oversight.

In the end the National Bioeconomy Blueprint feels more like an attempt for President Obama to claim he is creating jobs. What we really need is a serious discussion over how we should regulate new technologies and just what kind of future economy we want. If we are to have a truly sustainable economy moving forward, it cannot be based on risky, unregulated (and patented) technologies such as synthetic biology that pose serious harms to the environment and our health. The risks posed by synthetic biology and other biotechnologies must be studied before we rush forward with this new bioeconomy in which industry stands to make large profits while the risks are spread to the public.

Originally published on Friends of the Earth

Hats off to this mother of three who got fed up and took charge. Thirteen years ago, Sofía Gatica’s newborn died of kidney failure after being exposed to pesticides in the womb. After the despair came anger, then a fierce determination to protect the children in her community and beyond.

Today, she’s one of six grassroots leaders from around the world receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize, in recognition of her courageous—and successful—efforts.

Pesticide Action Network will host Sofía as she travels to San Francisco for tonight’s ceremony and celebration.

Pesticides drift from GE soy fields

Sofía lives in Ituzaingó Annex, a working-class neighborhood of 6,000 bordering commercial soy farms in the province of Córdoba in Argentina.

Argentina is the third largest exporter of soybeans in the world. It is also the third largest producer of genetically engineered (GE) crops worldwide, following closely behind the U.S. and neighboring Brazil. The explosion of GE soy production in Argentina has brought with it dramatic increases in pesticide use, and specifically aerial spraying of Monsanto’s weedkiller, RoundUp. Spraying of the antiquated insecticide endosulfan was also common until this year. Its use is now banned in Argentina as it moves toward a global phaseout under the Stockholm treaty.

RoundUp, long touted by Monsanto as all but harmless, has recently been linked to increased risk of birth defects when mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Endosulfan has also been linked to health harms in children, including birth defects, reproductive harm and autism.

Local mothers take charge

Here’s where Sofía’s story becomes truly inspirational.

After she lost her newborn, she realized that such losses were all too common in her small community. Building on Argentina’s powerful history of movements led by mothers, Sofía worked with other concerned moms to go door to door collecting stories about health problems in each family—essentially conducting the community’s first-ever epidemiological study.

Despite few resources and very real threats, Sofía led the Mothers of Ituzaingó to concrete victory.

“The Mothers of Ituzaingó” discovered the community’s cancer rate to be 41 times the national average. Rates of neurological problems, respiratory diseases and infant mortality were also astonishingly high.

The group then launched a “Stop the Spraying!” campaign, leading demonstrations and publishing materials warning the community about the dangers of pesticides.

Their efforts bore fruit. In 2008, Argentina’s president ordered an investigation of the health impacts of pesticides in Ituzaingó Annex; the resulting official study corroborated their informal door-to-door research. Sofía and the Mothers of Ituzaingó then won a municipal “buffer zone” ordinance, prohibiting aerial spraying less than 2,500 meters from homes.

Honoring leadership & courage

Each year since 1989, the Goldman Prize has honored grassroots leaders across the globe, unsung heroes who are campaigning for environmental justice and sustainability in their local communities. This global recognition of Sofia’s work couldn’t be more deserved.

Despite few resources and very real threats—including being held at gunpoint in her own home—Sofía led the Mothers of Ituzaingó to concrete victory: on-the-ground protections for the children in their community. The group also raised the profile of the broader issue of the health harms of pesticides to the national level, making room for a push for safer and more sustainable approaches to agriculture.

Sofía is now working with mothers in other Argentine communities, looking for ways to expand protections to families across the country.

Originally published by PANNA

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Dow’s 2,4-D corn, soon to be followed by 2,4-D soybeans and cotton, are the first of many new GE crops designed to launch American agriculture into a new era of increased dependence on more toxic pesticides, reversing decades of progress. Two-thirds of GE crops awaiting approval by USDA are resistant to one to three herbicides each, with many more in the longer-term pipeline. For instance, Monsanto has developed crops resistant to dicamba, a close chemical cousin to 2,4-D.

According to agricultural expert Dr. Charles Benbrook, 2,4-D corn will trigger an astounding 30-fold increase in 2,4-D use on corn by the end of the decade, assuming widespread planting. 2,4-D soybeans and cotton will boost usage still more. Yet USDA has provided no analysis of the serious harm to human health, the environment or neighboring farms that will result.

Farmers, women and children at greatest risk

Farmers are on the front line. While generally healthier than other Americans, farmers suffer higher rates of certain cancers, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), a cancer of the lymph nodes that kills 30 percent of those afflicted. Numerous studies in Sweden, Canada and by scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute have found that farmers who use 2,4-D and related herbicides are more likely to contract deadly NHL. While Sweden, Norway and Denmark have banned 2,4-D based on such studies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refuses to act. Other studies link farmer 2,4-D exposure to greater risk of Parkinson’s Disease.

The rest of us may also be at risk. 2,4-D is known to be a hormone-disrupting chemical, which can affect critical developmental processes in very small amounts. Lactating rats fed low doses of 2,4-D exhibit impaired maternal behavior while their pups weigh less. Children of pesticide applicators in areas of Minnesota with heavy use of chlorophenoxy herbicides like 2,4-D had a disproportionately higher incidence of birth anomalies than in non-crop regions or where these herbicides were less used. 2,4-D is frequently detected in surface water, albeit at low levels.

Based on these and numerous other studies, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petitioned EPA in 2008 to ban 2,4-D, and recently sued the Agency for its failure to respond. Meanwhile, the latest available data show that 2,4-D is still contaminated with low levels of extremely toxic dioxins, which may or may not be the cause of 2,4-D’s toxicity.

Chemical arms race with weeds

Farmers would have no interest in 2,4-D crops if there weren’t a raging epidemic of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Glyphosate-resistant weeds evolved to infest millions of acres of cropland through massive, unregulated use of glyphosate on Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant soybeans, corn and cotton. This epidemic of “superweeds” has alarmed agricultural scientists, triggering a substantial increase in herbicide use, greater use of soil-eroding tillage operations, and a return to weeding crews hoeing hundreds of thousands of acres, dramatically increasing production costs. A National Academy of Sciences committee singled out glyphosate-resistant weeds as an issue demanding national attention, and a leading weed scientist warns they represent a threat to global food production.

As farmers struggle to contend with a problem that Monsanto assured them would never arise, Dow sees a golden opportunity, marketing its 2,4-D crops as a false solution to glyphosate-resistant weeds. Dow scientist John Jachetta excitedly announced in the Wall Street Journal ”a new era” and “a very significant opportunity” for chemical companies in 2,4-D and similar herbicide-resistant crops.

Far from solving the resistant weed problem, however, a recent peer-reviewed study by Penn State weed ecologists suggests that 2,4-D crops (along with Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant crops) will trigger an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D or dicamba, another salvo in the all-out “chemical arms race” between herbicide-resistant crops and weeds. Weeds resistant to multiple herbicides are already on the rise, prompting an Illinois weed scientist to warn that ”we are running out of options” to confront what is rapidly becoming an “unmanageable problem.” The Center for Food Safety made similar findings in a 2008 report and in Congressional testimony on resistant weeds in 2010. The Penn State study also outlines sustainable weed control techniques that could avert further weed resistance.

Crop damage from herbicide drift

The Penn State scientists also warn that the massive increases in use of drift-prone 2,4-D and dicamba accompanying resistant crops will threaten neighbors’ crops through drift. Soybeans, cotton, most vegetables, grapes and many other crops are damaged by very low levels of 2,4-D. Even now, 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other pesticide. Farmers agree. Iowa corn and soybean grower George Naylor was recently quoted in a Greenwire story, and speaks for many farmers who are concerned about 2,4-D corn:

“It’s a big turning point for agriculture,” Naylor said. “If they are going to keep going down this road by coming up with a quick fix to the problems they created in the first place, then the problems are just going to compound… My neighborhood and a lot of farm neighborhoods are just going to be sacrificed zones,” added Naylor… “There is going to be stuff in the air all the time.”

In fact, a new coalition of farmers and food processors–the Save Our Crops Coalition–is organizing to stop 2,4-D crops from concern over huge crop losses due to 2,4-D drift.

Impacts on endangered species

2,4-D drift and runoff will also impact wild plants and animals. Because it is such a potent plant-killer, 2,4-D can harm animals by killing the plants they depend on for habitat and food. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that even now, 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several threatened and endangered species, including salmon and related fishes, the California red-legged frog, and the Alameda whipsnake. USDA’s approval of 2,4-D resistant corn can only make matters much worse, likely placing many other species at risk.

Comment period ends April 27, 2012

If approved, millions of acres of 2,4-D corn could be planted as early as next year. USDA’s public comment period is open until Friday, April 27, 2012. Tell USDA to deny Dow’s petition to approve 2,4-D corn. Comments may be submitted to the agency through the Center for Food Safety’s action link or through Regulations.gov. For more information on 2,4-D corn, see our fact sheet and more extensive Food Safety Review.

Originally published on Huffington Post

“There’s a lot of green lipstick on this pig,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “The whole idea of genetically engineering a pig to fit into an unsustainable production model and then dubbing it “enviro” is ridiculous. Given recent industry and consumer backlash, it’s no surprise that funding for this misguided research has dried up.”

The “Enviropig” was engineered using genetic material from a mouse and an E. coli bacterium to reduce phosphorus in the pig’s feces. The University of Guelph began its GE pig research in 1995 and requested food safety approval from regulatory authorities in Canada and the U.S. in 2009. While Canada approved reproduction of the GE pigs in February 2010, no government has approved the “Enviropig” for human consumption and no GE pigs have been sold commercially.

According to recent news reports, the Canadian hog industry group Ontario Pork has redirected its funding away from GE pig research. Lacking this funding, the university is ending its program to breed the genetically engineered pigs.

The announcement comes after years of mounting rejection by farmers, pork producers and consumers.  In a statement appearing in Reuters Canada yesterday, Paul Slomp of the National Farmers Union said, “[t]he GM pig was going to drive consumers away from eating pork if it was ever approved for market. This GM pig fiasco could have permanently damaged (Canada’s) domestic and international pork markets.”

Last year, Olymel, a pork processor in Quebec, announced it would not sell meat from Enviropigs even if the animals were approved for marketing. Other pork industry players are also leery of such biotech efforts. For example, the leading U.S. pork producer Smithfield Farms stated it would not sell meat from animal clones even with FDA approval, and that the company relies on traditional breeding.

“The U.S. government should quit wasting taxpayer dollars on what amounts to an engineered sham for the hog industry,” continued Kimbrell. “Consumers have made clear that they don’t want to eat genetically engineered animals. The FDA should stop its review of this GE pig immediately.”

Recent polls show that consumers do not want to eat these genetically engineered animals. An October 2010 poll by Thompson Reuters found that nearly 65 percent of consumers would not eat genetically engineered fish or meat and 93 percent consumers would want GE animals to be labeled if approved for consumption.

Support for GE labeling recently garnered media attention when a record-breaking one million public comments were sent to the FDA late last month in support of a legal petition filed by CFS calling on the agency to require the labeling of GE foods.  Fifty-five Members of Congress joined Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a letter to FDA in support of the legal petition.

Originally published by the Center for Food Safety

It looks like 2012 will be the year of two salmons: one a genetically altered “Frankenfish” currently under review by the Food and Drug Administration, and the other an inhabitant of one of the world’s last great wild salmon runs, which is unfortunately situated atop a whole lot of copper and gold deposits.

Our first salmon represents a giant step into the unknown of genetically engineered organisms. AquaBounty, a company originally incorporated to produce antifreeze, is trying to get FDA approval of its very own patented salmon species called “AquAdvantage.” If approved, the purportedly sterile, all-female salmon would be the first-ever market-approved, genetically engineered protein to reach our dinner plates. But in the absurd world of engineered food, the FDA is not reviewing AquAdvantage salmon as “fish,” rather it’s being studied as a “new animal drug.” A new animal drug–sorry, “fish”–that wouldn’t require labeling on grocery shelves or menus.

Three consumer groups–Food and Water Watch, Consumers Union and the Center for Food Safety–recently submitted a petition calling on the FDA to reclassify the genetically altered fish so that it undergoes a more rigorous review process. Even the current Congress has taken note, with at least 30 House members and 14 senators having written the Obama administration expressing serious concerns about the FDA’s review of AquAdvantage salmon, in some cases calling for the outright prohibition of its approval for human consumption.

In a hearing last December, Four Fish author Paul Greenberg told a Senate subcommittee that “This fish is not worth the risk. We would be better pursuing a course of truly sustainable aquaculture and better management and use of our wild fisheries.”

Which brings us to our second salmon of 2012, one that swims wild and free but faces a big crisis in Southwestern Alaska. Several mining corporations think that Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon run, would be a great place to hollow out what would be one of the largest open-pit mines on the planet. In digging out deposits of copper and gold, the Pebble Minecomplex would require an immense containment pond to hold up to 10 billion tons of mine waste, all held back by nine miles of dams reaching up to 740 feet high. For perspective, the Hoover Dam is 726 feet high and a relatively meager 1,200 feet wide, so we’re talking potentially 40 Hoover Dams stretching across the Alaskan wilderness.

This risky development would straddle two of the Bay’s most important salmon streams and, just to keep things really interesting, sit on top of a seismically-active zone. And the Pebble Mine may be just the start of much more mineral excavation in the region, because the massive investment in infrastructure that the mine would require–roads, pipelines, a shipping port–will likely lead to even more mining proposals. Proponents of course cite the new jobs that the mine would create, about 1,000 long-term jobs according to the Pebble Partnership, while perhaps conveniently ignoring the thousands of local jobs already supported by the sustainably-managed salmon fishery in the region–jobs that could be put in jeopardy if the project is approved.

The Pebble Mine’s future may be decided this summer. Congress will conduct hearings on the project by June, while an alliance of sportsmen, Alaska tribes, native corporations, commercial fishermen and even chefs from across the country are petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency to invoke its Clean Water Act authority and protect this important salmon spawning and wildlife habitat.

So, 2012, which salmon will it be for dinner: wild or patented? That depends on whether we decide if protecting one of the last wild stocks trumps the profit potential (for a selected few) that gold and copper mining presents. It also depends on whether we think allowing genetically modified fish on grocery shelves is acceptable, despite not fully understanding the health and environmental costs. Which do you prefer? We know what sounds good to us.

Originally published at Ecocentric.

Photo: Salmon run by Shutterstock

We know we’ve struck a chord with the Just Label It campaign, as Americans are responding in record-breaking numbers. As of today, more than 900,000 people have submitted comments to the FDA in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. (I’ve written about the campaign before here and here.) But this campaign has always been about more than just the numbers. It’s about spreading the word about our right to have GE foods labeled.

We’re excited to now introduce this new infographic, which visually explains why the FDA should Just Label It. Designed to clearly show the need for labeling of GE foods, this educational tool includes a link to the Just Label It website where consumers can submit a comment to the FDA. Convenient for sharing on-line and via social media, the infographic is being distributed nationally by Just Label It’s 500 diverse partner organizations.

Whether it’s salmon genetically engineered to grow at twice its natural rate or herbicide-resistant corn that encourages the use of more chemicals in our food supply, we have a right to know what’s in our food.

Already, more than 40 countries–including China and Russia–require labels on genetically engineered food. As Americans, we deserve the same opportunity to make informed decisions about what we eat.

As more Americans know about GE foods, more pressure will build on the FDA to label them. This new infographic will help do just that and it’s easy to share with friends and family, so everyone can be afforded the right to make informed decisions about the food they eat as well. So please help share this cool new tool online, on Twitter, and Facebook. Together, we’ll continue to raise awareness and make our collected voices heard!

Originally published by Just Label It

Today, February 27, is an Occupy Our Food Supply day of action. The following essay is just one of several related posts that will be appearing online to mark the day.

The biggest corporate takeover on the planet is the hijacking of the food system, the cost of which has had huge and irreversible consequences for the Earth and people everywhere.

From the seed to the farm to the store to your table, corporations are seeking total control over biodiversity, land, and water. They are seeking control over how food is grown, processed, and distributed. And in seeking this total control, they are destroying the Earth’s ecological processes, our farmers, our health, and our freedoms.

It starts with seeds. Monsanto and a few other gene giants are trying to control and own the world’s seeds through genetic engineering and patents. Monsanto wrote the World Trade Organization treaty on Intellectual Property, which forces countries to patent seeds. As a Monsanto representative once said: “In drafting these agreements, we were the patient, diagnostician [and] physician all in one.”

They defined a problem, and for these corporate profiteers the problem was that farmers save seeds, making it difficult for them to continue wringing profits out of those farmers. So they offered a solution, and their solution was that seeds should be redefined as intellectual property, hence seed saving becomes theft and seed sharing is criminalized. I believe that saving seeds and protecting biodiversity is our ecological and ethical duty. That is why I started Navdanya 25 years ago.

Navdanya is a movement to occupy the seed. We have created 66 community seed banks, saved 3000 rice varieties, stopped laws that would prevent us from seed saving, and fought against biopiracy.

Corporations like Monsanto have created a seed emergency. This is the reason I am starting a global citizen’s campaign on seed sovereignty. I hope you will all join. The lawsuit that 84 organizations, including Navdanya, have filed against Monsanto in New York through the Public Patent Foundation is an important step in reclaiming seed sovereignty.

The next step in the corporate control of the food supply chain is on our farms. Contrary to the claims of corporations, the chemical-based “green” revolution and genetic engineering do not produce more food. Navdanya’s report on GMOs, Health per Acre, shows that the GMO emperor has no clothes. Biodiverse organic farming protects nature while increasing nutrition per acre. We have the solutions to hunger, but it’s not profitable for major industrial agriculture companies like Monsanto and Cargill to implement those solutions.

Cargill, the world’s biggest grain giant, wrote the WTO’s agriculture agreement, which has destroyed local production and local markets everywhere, uprooted small farmers, devastated the Amazon, and speculated on food commodities, pushing millions to hunger. A global corporate-controlled food system robs farmers of their incomes by pushing down farm prices, and robs the poor of their right to food by pushing up food prices. If a billion people are hungry today, it is because of greed-driven, capital-intensive, unsustainable, corporate-controlled globalized industrial agriculture. While creating hunger worldwide, agribusiness giants collect our tax money as subsidies in the name of removing hunger.

This system has pushed another 2 billion to food-related diseases like obesity and diabetes. Replacing healthy, local food culture with junk and processed food is achieved through food safety laws, which I call pseudo-hygiene laws. At the global level these include the Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary agreement of the WTO. At the national level they include new corporate-written food safety laws in Europe and India, and the Food Safety Modernization Act in the U.S.

The final link in the corporate hijacking of the food system is retail giants like Wal-Mart. We have been resisting the entry of Wal-Mart in India because Big Retail means Big Ag, and together the corporate giants destroy small shops and small farms that provide livelihoods to millions.

We must Occupy Our Food Supply because corporations are destroying our seed and soil, our water and land, our climate, and biodiversity. Forty percent of the greenhouse gases that are destabilizing the climate right now come from corporate industrial agriculture. Seventy percent of water is wasted for industrial agriculture. Seventy-five percent of biodiversity has been lost due to industrial monocultures.

We have alternatives that protect the Earth, protect our farmers, and protect our health and nutrition. To occupy the food system means simultaneously resisting corporate control and building sustainable and just alternatives, from the seed to the table. One seed at a time, one farm at a time, one meal at a time–we must break out of corporate food dictatorship and create a vibrant and robust food democracy.

Learn more about the Occupy Our Food Supply day of action, sponsored by Rainforest Action Network. Find an event near you or follow the action all day on Twitter.

Originally published on Grist

Photo: Lettuce by Shutterstock

However—and this is no small matter—by conflating fringe climate-deniers with established scientists raising valid concerns about the effects of GMOs, Federoff undermines the scientific integrity that she purports to uphold. The hypocrisy is astonishing.

The reason we cannot get a reality-based conversation started on GMOs is because we have precious little independent science on their effectiveness or safety. We know so little about GMOs’ safety or efficacy because global ag biotech firms like Monsanto, Dow and DuPont actively suppress science under the heading of protecting “confidential business information.” Companies routinely deny scientists’ research requests and suppress publication of research by threatening legal action, a practice one scientist describes as “chilling.”

In February 2009, 26 corn-pest scientists anonymously submitted a statement to U.S. EPA decrying industry’s prohibitive restrictions on independent research, especially as concerns ag biotech. They submitted the following statement anonymously for fear of being blacklisted:

“Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”

The same year, the editors of Scientific American warned of the debilitating effects of the ag biotech industry’s attacks on science:

 “Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.”

When the world’s top scientists have been allowed to examine freely the available evidence, unfettered by corporate restrictions, the results stand in startling contrast to industry claims. Four years ago, the agricultural equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was completed, the World Bank and UN-led International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). I participated as a lead author in that rigorous 4-year process, in which over 400 scientist and development experts from more than 80 countries conducted the most comprehensive assessment of international agricultural technology to date. The IAASTD’s findings were clear:

1. Genetically engineered crops have failed to deliver on industry promises of increased yields, nutritional value, salt or drought-tolerance.
2. The unprecedented pace of corporate concentration in the pesticide and seed industry has enabled the ag biotech industry to exert undue influence over public policy and research institutions, funneling public resources towards products that have benefited their manufacturers without generating benefits for the world’s poor.
3. The developing world’s best hopes for feeding itself, especially under conditions of climate change, lie not in GMOs, but rather in approaches such as agroecology—the integration of cutting-edge agroecological sciences with farmer innovation and locally appropriate, productive and profitable, ecological farming practices. The ability of agroecology to double food production within 10 years was recently re-affirmed by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

So yes, let’s beat back the “anti-science lobby” and restore scientific integrity to public policy and independence and transparency to our research institutions. The future of our planet depends on it.

Originally published on PANNA

For example, having invented the concept of ‘trait hectares’ to calculate the global uptake of GM that even a child could see doesn’t add up (e.g., if one acre of crop has six stacked GM traits in it, the ISAAA counts it as 6 hectares of GM), this year the ISAAA once again relies on material from the controversial Brookes and Barfoot team behind the pro-GM consultancy PG Economics.

PG Economics, which claims to be ‘objective and focused on using reliable and substantiated facts,’ in fact has significant ties to the biotech industry, calling into question the impartiality of its analysis, which has time and time again been challenged on their manipulation of data.

The illegitimacy of their approach was exposed in 2009 by agronomist Charles Benbrook, whose many roles include executive director of the Board on Agriculture at the US National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences.

Nevertheless, PG Economics enjoys a wide-ranging appeal in pro-GM policy and lobbying circles. As well as being used by the biotech industry to support their marketing strategies, the company supplies consultancy services to the British and the American Soybean Association.

Brookes and Barfoot’s work was even used in 2008 by the European Commission to demonstrate elevation in GM yields without reflecting PG Economic’s own admission: “In other regions, however, profits were only marginal” (ie, the yield was only higher in one province of the three Spanish regions studied, but GM did not actually improve yields anywhere else).

This is significant as it was an early part of the framing of the debate on devolved GM cultivation decisions (or ‘bans,’ at that time referred to as ‘socio-economic considerations’) the EU is still wrestling with as member states look at the evidence of wider negative impacts of GM crops emerging from a host of scientists worldwide.

Some EU members appear to appreciate the relationships–in a 2010 study the GM-sceptic Austrian government explored the socio-economic impacts of GM cultivation and listed Brookes and Barfoot as ‘Industry or somehow affiliated to industry’.

The stakes are high, so information matters. During the global food crises of 2007–08 and 2010–11, agribusiness gained massive profits. Pro-biotech interests—particularly industry giant Monsanto—have since launched a variety of public relations strategies, including advertising campaigns and a series of reports touting the benefits of transgenic agriculture to farmers and the environment.

Our analysis finds that the Monsanto-funded reports use questionable methods and present misleading assessments of the impacts of genetically engineered crops.

From 2009 to 2011, Monsanto sponsored annual reports on the global economic and environmental impacts of GM crop varieties published by PG Economics. While the findings in these reports have been well received by industry and pro-biotech groups, a closer look at the 2011 report titled ‘GM crops: Global Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts, 1996-2009′ reveals faulty analysis that overstates the benefits of genetically engineered crops, while understating their costs.

The use of creative data methods does not change the fact that GM is not needed to feed the world and that more sustainable and equitable alternatives can be just as, if not more, productive. A more reliable assessment of whether transgenic agriculture fits into a more sustainable and equitable future would require a look at the full range of socioeconomic and environmental consequences.

This means using real-world data where available and fully accounting for negative impacts on crop diversity, non-target species, soils, small farms and people’s ability to control their food system. It should also include consideration of how consolidation of market power in the seed, chemical and grain industries affects farmers and consumers around the world.

When this is done, the GM picture is far from rosy, whatever the industry says, or pays others to say, and it’s past time for European policy makers to stop relying on such questionable sources. Rampant weed resistance and growing insect resistance in the U.S. and elsewhere are exposing the serious flaws in the GM experiment.

In the past few weeks alone Monsanto has pulled its GM maize out of France and BASF said it would suspend the development of GM crops in Europe, with a member of the company’s board saying “it does not make business sense” to continue trying to operate in a market that doesn’t want what they have to sell.

The only way the GM industry and their supporters can make GM look good is if they cook the books. The only way they can sell their product is in unlabelled packages in the US and elsewhere so consumers don’t know where it is. This smacks of desperation, not success.

Originally published on EurActiv