How Obama-Monsanto’s Food Act Destroys Small Farms

By Rady Ananda
COTO Report

On par with Stalin’s farm collectivization program of the 1930s, Monsanto’s push (to the tune of $8.8 million in lobby bribes in 2008 alone) for the Food Safety Modernization Act is already achieving the nightmares of its worst critics.

Introduced in 2008 by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) as HR-875, the reworked FSMA was signed into law in January 2011 by President Obama. DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenberg, served as a consultant to Monsanto thru his strategic political consulting firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. (GQRR also advised Tony Blair and Bill Clinton during their campaigns.)

I Am Steve Marsh: Global organic protection campaign faces trial

By Rady Ananda
COTO Report

Steve Marsh’s organic canola fields in Western Australia suffered 70% genetic contamination from a neighboring biotech farm that sowed Monsanto seeds. As a result, he lost organic certification after 11 years, and his livelihood was destroyed.

Marsh is the first organic farmer in the world, according to a 22-minute video (below), to sue a biotech farmer for damages. The trial begins on Feb. 10 and he’s seeking donations to cover attorney fees.

Monsanto faces another Supreme Court challenge

By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

The latest group to challenge Monsanto is heading to the US Supreme Court, this time to seek a covenant not to sue when their crops become genetically contaminated.

The Organic Growers and Seed Traders Assn., et al. filed their petition for writ of certiorari on Sept. 5, appealing a lower court ruling that determined that Monsanto’s website and court statements promising not to sue rendered OSGATA’s action moot.

Stopping a War Before It Starts

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

Who’s up for stopping a war?

This is the time, as the next war strains to be born, amid the same old lies as last time, amid the same urgency and pseudo-debate and pretensions of seriousness:

The government of Syria has crossed a “red line.” It has used poison gas, killing hundreds of innocent people and committing a heinous war crime. And suddenly, clear as a bell, we have good vs. evil. Our only course of action, President Obama and his spokespersons tell us, is to “carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government.”

Ecowarriors destroy 6,000 GM beets in Oregon

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom News

To protect against genetic contamination, a group of ecodefenders destroyed 6,000 genetically modified beets in Jackson County, Oregon earlier this month. The FBI is involved and has deemed the act “economic sabotage,” despite that Syngenta is creating products that economically destroy organic crops through genetic contamination and pesticide aerial drift.

When cross contamination occurs, then our corrupt judicial system blames the victim farmer who is ordered to pay Monsanto for the company’s failure to control its frankenseeds that contaminated her organic crops.

How Congress let Monsanto off the hook

By Michael Collins
COTO Report

Not many people like the messes Congress makes but everybody should see how they’re made.

This article takes a close look at the legislation just passed by Congress and signed by President Obama allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to issue executive orders that bypass regulations, safety, and science for the purpose of speeding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered seeds (GE) and crops to market.  The way the law is written, Secretary Tom Vilsack can lift restrictions on GMOs for a set period and, it appears, do so without hindrance from the courts.

FDA okays GMO carrot for rare Gaucher disease

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom News

The US Food & Drug Admin. just approved a drug made from genetically modified carrots to treat Gaucher, a rare disease found mostly among Ashkenazi Jews. Out of a global population of 6.8 billion, an estimated range of 600,000 to a million carry the recessive gene for it, though not all are symptomatic.

The incidence of Gaucher is so rare, in fact, that to approve a GMO carrot for this purpose makes no sense, raising the specter of some unstated plan.

As expected when humans ingest active foreign DNA, one of the side effects of the FDA-approved drug, Elelyso®, is anaphylactic shock, among other allergic reactions.

France bans GM corn amid mass US protests against Monsanto

French activists rip open bags of MON 810, a variety of Monsanto's genetically modified corn after entering a Monsanto storehouse. (AFP Photo/Eric Cabanis)

By Rady Ananda
Global Research

Amid mass US protests against Monsanto yesterday, France imposed a temporary moratorium on the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, MON810.

“Due to the proximity of the planting season,” said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire along with Francois Fillon, Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, in a press release on Friday, authorities “decided to take a precautionary measure to temporarily prohibit the cultivation of maize MON810 on the national territory to protect the environment.”

­All prior plantings of MON810, trade name YieldGard, become illegal on March 20.

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.

Global milk war ramps up as citizens face off with regulators

By Rady Ananda

The battle for food freedom intensifies across the planet as citizens assert their right to raw dairy products unadulterated by drugs and genetically modified ingredients – in the face of authorities seeking to restrict our food choices and to criminalize entrepreneurs who operate outside the monopolized factory food system.

The State of Maine recently sued farmer Dan Brown for selling food and milk without State licenses, despite a local law that permits it. “Blue Hill is one of five Maine towns to have passed the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance,” explains Family Farm Defenders.

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.

Whistleblowers win one; lose two

Drs. Gerard Lambert, Margaret Haydon and Shiv Chopra of Health Canada

In a long-running whistleblowing saga, two of three scientists fired by Health Canada (akin to the US Food & Drug Administration) have lost a bid to get their jobs back, though they protected food safety.

In the U.S., however, after a six-year legal battle, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to pay nearly $1 million to a former top contracting official who charged that she was demoted after she objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract granted to a Halliburton subsidiary to repair oil fields in Iraq.

Chemtrails, Monsanto & Olgacom connection; Whistleblower’s friends threatened

By Alenka Wacek
Olgacom Scandal

This video explains the connection of the new world order to the waste dump and geoengineering by big companies, Royal DSM, China Sinochem, Monsanto as Olgacom Project.

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.”

Lawsuit seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s GMO patents

By Rady Ananda
Originally posted at Global Research.

“A new invention to poison people … is not a patentable invention.” Lowell v. Lewis, 1817

A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated.

The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from sixty organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers.

“As Justice Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be ‘injurious to the well being, good policy, or sound morals of society,’” notes the complaint in its opening paragraphs.

Joe Bageant Passes; Review of his last book on agrarian democracy

Joe Bageant, 1946-2011

After a vibrant life, Joe Bageant died on March 27 following a four-month struggle with cancer. He was 64. Joe is survived by his wife, Barbara, his three children, Timothy, Patrick and Elizabeth, and thousands of friends and admirers. He is also survived by his work and ideas. According to Joe’s wishes, he will be cremated. His family will hold a private memorial service.

Here’s his last post, on January 4, 2011, announcing his cancer.

Some Fight Back

A Review of Joe Bageant’s Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir

By Michael Donnelly

This book is all about the post WWII shift from Maw and Pap’s agrarian democracy to the urban-dominated/techno/bureaucratic/ military/security/consumer Empire of today, showing how that shift and the resulting class stratification has led us to the brink of economic and ecological collapse, writes Donnelly.

Black ops on GM critics, other social justice advocates reveal corporate-government collusion

Energy companies, biotech firms, business associations and globalists hire spies, police and mercenaries to scrutinize activists and thwart their activities. Methods include infiltration, criminal trespass, theft, computer hacking, and creating false identities and fraudulent documents to smear labor unions, environmentalists, and other progressive groups. Greenpeace, Common Cause and Protect Our Elections are fighting back with lawsuits. (Embedded links added.) ~Ed.

Greenpeace finds itself in cross hairs

By Peter Huck
New Zealand Herald

The first time Greenpeace USA realised they had a security problem was in April 2008 when Mark Floegel, senior investigator with the environmental organisation, took a call from a colleague.

“He told me Jim Ridgeway, a reporter with Mother Jones, was writing a piece and would call me for comment. I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Floegel said.

Ridgeway revealed Greenpeace had been “targeted” by a private security company and that a trove of sensitive documents was stashed in a Maryland storage locker.