Frito-Lay sued for labeling its GMO-filled snacks as “All Natural”

By Rady Ananda

Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.

Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.

Stocking stuffers for foodies (5-book review)

By Rady Ananda

Need a last minute gift for your beloved locavore? Several books would make excellent holiday gifts, so this review covers a few of them on the environment, as it relates to local food sovereignty, food security and palate delight. There’s even one for kids, which starts the set:

Avatars of Gaia: Escape from Hazard Hollow
Professor Heart (self-published: 2009, 210 pp.)
Website: www.avatarsofgaia.org

Charlotte Purin of Los Angeles decided one of the best ways to save Mother Earth is to get kids involved. So she wrote Avatars of Gaia: Escape from Hazard Hollow for preteens. The tale educates as it entertains, integrating the concepts of sustainability, healthy-eating, and environmental consciousness into a fantasy adventure story.

GMO, chemtrail opponent arrested in Serbia

By Mara Kern

For daring to expose the truth about genocide of Serbs and humanity by poisons sprayed from the planes, the truth about illegal growth and trade with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in our country, Nikola Aleksić, the leader of Serbian ecologist is facing dire difficulties, and is requesting donations.

While on his way to the press conference in Belgrade, they tried to kill him, and this was not the first attempt to do so.

Monsanto sued him through its exclusive partner in Serbia for exposing the truth about GMOs, threatening to deprive him and his family of their flat as a means of lawsuit compensation with the help of corrupted courts in Serbia.

New film: WWF beds with Monsanto to steal public lands, promote GM crops

By Rady Ananda

“We need to start focusing on food production.  It takes 15 years to bring a genetically engineered product to market. The clock is ticking.  We need to get moving.” ~ Dr Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, World Wildlife Fund, 2010.

A 2011 film by Wilfried Huismann, The Silence of the Pandas, targets the World Wildlife Fund, the largest, most trusted, and best-funded environmental “protection” organization in the world.  Its reputation does not live up to its actions, however, which green wash industries that are destroying the environment as well as indigenous cultures.

EU Court rules on GMO contamination; opens door to biotech liability

EU beekeepers gain in genetic contamination case

By Rady Ananda

On Sept. 6, the European Union’s top court paved the way for farmers and beekeepers to recoup losses when their crops or honey become genetically contaminated from neighboring GM fields.

The European Court of Justice ruled that all food products containing GMOs – whether intentional or not – must undergo an approval process.

This marks a much stricter view than that being pushed by European Union Commissioner for health and consumer affairs, John Dalli,  who wants no regulation of foods genetically contaminated “by accident,” a ludicrous idea given that coexistence ensures genetic contamination.

Monsanto GM Corn in Peril: Beetle develops Bt-resistance

By Rady Ananda

Nature herself may be the best opponent of genetically modified crops and pesticides.  Not only plants, but insects are also developing resistance.  The Western rootworm beetle – one of the most serious threats to corn – has developed resistance to Monsanto’s Bt-corn, and entire crops are being lost. [Image]

Farmers from several Midwest states began reporting root damage to corn that was specifically engineered with a toxin to kill the rootworm.  Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann recently confirmed that the beetle, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, has developed resistance to the Bt protein, Cry3Bb1.

Serbian NGO head warns Gov: Stop GMOs, Stop Chemtrails

By Nikola Aleksic
Ecology Movement of Novi Sad

Transcription at AirCrap.org

In this remarkable video from Serbia (English transcript is below), Nikola Aleksic, Director of the Ecological Movement of Novi Sad, issues a stern warning to the president Boris Tadic to stop importing food based upon GMO and stop the chemtrail spraying, or he will call and personally lead the people of Serbia to the streets. He concludes his speech by saying: “You can be sure that, I, Nikola Aleksic, will keep my word – even at the cost of my own life.”

Aleksic also implores the Serbian army to “defend your people and sky over Serbia”, and tells the people of Serbia that now is no time to be cowards – they need to stand up for their rights for themselves and their children.

Factory Foods Cause 70 pct of all foodborne illnesses; Dairy safest

By Rady Ananda

With all the milk raids over the past few years, you wouldn’t think that dairy is the safest type of food in the U.S., or that factory foods cause 70% of all foodborne illnesses – but that’s just what a new study by the University of Florida reveals. [1]

Agrochemicals, energy plants and GMO crops killing Bathinda residents

Guru Nanak Dev coal plant

By Rady Ananda

Home to two coal power plants, a fertilizer plant, and a large oil refinery, the city of Bathinda in Punjab, India is making people sick.  Forty percent of the population (nearly 90,000 people) suffers from respiratory ailments. The area also suffers from a host of other diseases including cancer, at a rate triple that of other areas, which has been linked to agrochemicals.

FDA Goons and the Second Amendment

By Rady Ananda

On July 16, the US Food and Drug Administration posted a libelous release linking a foodborne pathogen to a South Carolina raw dairy before confirming whether or not such a link existed. Two weeks later, the FDA determined that Tucker Adkins Dairy products were free of all contaminants but has still not issued a retraction at its webpage.

“How do we get our reputation back?”  That’s what Tommy and Carolyn Adkins asked the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. (FTCLDF)

Without a retraction at the web page, they can’t.

Rawesome Raided Again! Farmers and private food club owner arrested for selling fresh milk

By Rady Ananda

About 20 armed agents from various local, state and federal agencies, coordinated by the US Food and Drug Administration, staged another raid on fresh foods sold in California at a Ventura County farm and at Rawesome Foods, a private buying club providing members with unadulterated, unpasteurized milk and dairy products, among other items.

Healthy Family Farms owner Sharon Palmer and one of her employees, Eugenie Bloch, were arrested, along with James Stewart, the operator of Rawesome Foods located in Venice, California.

A protest is planned for tomorrow’s arraignment hearings (Thursday, August 4) at Los Angeles Superior Court, Criminal Justice Center, 210 W. Temple Street. Organizers are asking protesters to arrive at 7:45 am.

Controversial ag spending bill defunds local food systems, promotes meat monopoly

By Rady Ananda

Plutocrats aimed another weapon at the nation’s poor and at small and midsized farmers, this time thru the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, which the House passed on June 16. The 82-page bill returns some federal spending to 2006 levels and others to 2008 levels.

Now being reviewed by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the final version of HR 2112 will lay the terrain on which the 2012 Farm Bill will be crafted. The House Agriculture Committee began preparatory hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill this week, reports NSAC.

Key sections provide deep cuts to domestic food programs, threatening food banks, low-income seniors, women and children, and farmers markets supported by WIC vouchers issued thru the Women, Infants and Children program.

Home Rule takes a beating as Maine defeats food freedom bills

By Rady Ananda

In the state that made international news this year when three towns passed a food sovereignty ordinance, two bills that would have bolstered them at the state level met with defeat in Maine’s legislative Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee.

Sponsored by Rep. Walter Kumiega, LD 366 was rejected by the Ag Committee on May 11. The raw milk bill would have obviated licensing for the direct sale from farmer to consumer and protected small operations from overly burdensome rules recently imposed at the bureaucratic level.

“Requiring someone with two cows or a handful of goats to invest ten thousand dollars or more to build an inspectable facility doesn’t make economic sense,” Kumiega told Food Freedom. “Hand milking is a perfectly acceptable method and does not need the same facilities that a machine milking operation does. LD 366 seeks to restore an exemption that was a standard practice up until two years ago, when it was changed by an administrative decision.”

How Safe Is Your Food? GMOs, Foodborne Illness and Trade Agreements

Graph: Data compiled by GRAIN from government and UN sources, 2008-2010 (except Australia=2005)

By Rady Ananda

A research group that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, GRAIN, has released a global report, Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. Peoples’ Health, showing how governments and corporations use “food safety” to manipulate market access and control. Rather than making food safer, domestic and trade rules “force open markets, or backdoor ways to limit market access.”

Industry’s war on nature: ‘What are the bees telling us?’

By Rady Ananda

While industries continue to pollute the planet with their toxic chemicals, toxic waste and toxic spills, Earth’s pollinators sing a swan song that leaves no doubt as to the folly of modern civilization. Our ability to hear and appropriately respond to the crisis of declining pollinators will determine humanity’s survival.

“In 1923, Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scientist, philosopher and social innovator, predicted that in 80 to 100 years honeybees would collapse.” Queen of the Sun

Steiner believed the industrialization of bees would lead to their demise. It looks like he was right. In recent years, the United States has lost between 100 and 300 billion bees, and the problem has spread to Europe and beyond. While industrialized beekeeping operations do kill millions of bees each year, several other factors contribute to their massive die-off.

A Perfect Storm of GMOs, Chemicals and Cancer

By Rady Ananda

Several books, including Seeds of Destruction and Corrupt to the Core, along with the film, The Idiot Cycle, lay out the framework for and evidence of a concerted effort to sicken and then treat humanity, while earning obscene profits. When we factor in other recent actions taken by transnational corporations and lawmakers, the conspiracy adopts a more ominous tone.

Authors William Engdahl and Shiv Chopra appear in Emmanuelle Schick Garcia’s powerful film, The Idiot Cycle: What you aren’t being told about cancer. Both writers provide detailed evidence of a corporate-government conspiracy to adulterate the food and water supply with dangerous substances linked to a host of illnesses. The Case Against Fluoride, a book using hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, provides more evidence. In David Gumpert’s Raw Milk Revolution, we get a peek at the US government’s war on the natural dairy industry.

After 20 years, nearly everyone still wants GM food to be labeled

By Rady Ananda

At this MSNBC poll, over 40,000 people have voted strongly in favor of labeling genetically modified foods: 96% of all respondents.

But, a review of several polls going back to 1994 reveals that the numbers have always been high — the vast majority of people have always wanted GM labels. That biotech foods have remained unlabeled for nearly 20 years in the US reveals a deliberate and willful refusal by regulatory agencies to serve the will of the people, instead opting to abet industry profits through public deception.

Canada defeats GMO hazard legislation

By Rady Ananda

By a vote of 178 to 98, on February 9th, Canada’s House of Commons defeated Bill C-474, an Act that would have required an analysis of potential harm to export markets before permitting the commercialization of any new genetically engineered seed. Organic farmers now fear the collapse of the wheat and alfalfa markets, since Canada’s export markets reject biotech food.

Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth) and leader of Canada’s New Democrats, expressed his disappointment in an email promising to “continue to take every opportunity to pressure the government to initiate a public debate around genetic engineering and to use a precautionary approach to this important issue.”

Foiled ‘terror’ plot on eve of passage of Food Patriot Act

By Rady Ananda

None other than CIA-run CBS News reported yesterday that the “Latest Terror Threat in US Aimed to Poison Food.” Though the stymied “terrorist” plot was “uncovered earlier this year,” the CBS exclusive report is filed on the eve of passage of the draconian Food Safety Modernization Act, otherwise known as the Food Patriot Act.

Apparently, official estimates of the number of foodborne illnesses (based on speculation and assumption) isn’t enough to scare the public in the minds of corporate officials. Adding to the long list of government-orchestrated terror events, we now learn of an alleged plot to poison the food supply. The transparent timing of such a “news” story couldn’t be more obvious if Obama had cried ‘Wolf!’

Leaked Cable: Hike food prices to boost GM crop approval

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

In a January 2008 meeting, US and Spain trade officials strategized how to increase acceptance of genetically modified foods in Europe, including inflating food prices on the commodities market, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

During the meeting, Secretary of State for International Trade, Pedro Mejia, and Secretary General Alfredo Bonet “noted that commodity price hikes might spur greater liberalization on biotech imports.”

It seems Wall Street traders got the word. By June 2008, food prices had spiked so severely that “The Economist announced that the real price of food had reached its highest level since 1845, the year the magazine first calculated the number,” reports Fred Kaufman in The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it.