A Silent Forest. The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees
“someone posted this & I cant remember who… sorry. In the interest of informing others I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me…”
New Research: GMO Food Far Worse Than We Think
Disturbing new research published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology indicates that genetically modified (GM) crops with “stacked traits,” that is, with multiple traits such as glyphosate-herbicide resistance andBacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insecticidal toxins engineered together into the same plant, are likely far more dangerous to human health than previously believed, due to their synergistic toxicity.
From my friend Sura on FaceBook
parkstepp
chos:
GMO Film Project by filmmaker Jeremy Seifert (known for Dive!)
THE GMO FILM PROJECT tells the story of a father’s discovery of GMOs through the symbolic act of poor Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto’s gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake of January 2010. After a journey to Haiti to learn why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to our food in the US, what we are feeding our families, and what is at stake for the global food supply unfolds in a trip across the United States and other countries in search of answers. Are we at a tipping point? Is it time to take back our food? The encroaching darkness of unknown health and environmental risks, seed take over, chemical toxins, and food monopoly meets with the light of a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a burgeoning movement to take back what we have lost.
Today in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly participate in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings. Massive agro-chemical companies like Monsanto (Agent Orange) and Dow (Napalm) are feeding us genetically-modified food, GMOs, that have never been fully tested and aren’t labeled. This small handful of corporations is tightening their grip on the world’s food supply—buying, modifying, and patenting seeds to ensure total control over everything we eat. We still have time to heal the planet, feed the world, and live sustainably. But we have to start now!
(via kadbudugorjeligradovi)
Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe)
No wonder that a company engaged in the “science of death” as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of “philanthropy.” Another association that is not surprising.
It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.
(via humulus)
Globalization As Genocide: 200,000 Farmer Suicides In India
The crisis, branded the ‘GM Genocide’ by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM(Genetically Modified) had become a ‘global moral question’ - and the time had come to end its unstoppable march. …
In one small village I visited, 18 farmers had committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands - only to kill themselves as well.
….In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution.
But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers’ lives have slid back into the dark ages
Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years - up to 17 million acres - many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.
But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That’s because GM seeds contain so- called ‘terminator technology’, meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.
Meaning: As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death….
‘We are ruined now,’ said the dead man’s 38-year-old wife. ‘We bought 100 grams of BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.’ ….
But the debt does not die with her husband: unless she can find a way of paying it off, she will not be able to afford the children’s schooling. They will lose their land, joining the hordes seen begging in their thousands by the roadside throughout this vast, chaotic country.
Cruelly, it’s the young who are suffering most from the ‘GM Genocide‘ - the very generation supposed to be lifted out of a life of hardship and misery by these ‘magic seeds’.
…………………..
So what will happen to us here in the US?
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(via lifting-of-the-veil)
** HORRIBLE BIRTH DEFECTS CAUSED BY MONSANTO’S ROUNDUP **
http://www.naturalnews.com/032920_Roundup_birth_defects.html
(NaturalNews) A recent report put together by various professors, scholars and researchers affiliated withEarth Open Source, a collaboration group devoted to food issues, cites in great deal the multitude of peer-reviewed scientific studies which show that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), which is applied to many genetically-modified (GM) crops, is responsible for causing birth defects, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer — and yetgovernmentagencies around the world continue to ignore this crucial information, and withhold it from the public, as they push for its approval or expanded use.
One of the mainstudieshighlighted in the report was published in the August 2010 edition ofChemical Research in Toxicology, and it showed thatRoundupcauses malformations in frog and chicken embryos at levels much lower than those used on agriculturalcrops. And since Roundup-ready GM crops are designed to tolerate theherbicide, not resist it, they literally absorb Roundup, which is then passed on in much higher levels to humans that eat the tainted crops.
Another study conducted as part of the Argentine government’sresearchgroup CONICET found high rates of the same or similarbirthdefect in humans living nearGM soycrops that were routinely sprayed with Roundup, indicating a clear connection between the chemical and humanbirth defects. More than half of the growing land in Argentina is now dominated by GMsoy, which is sprayed with about 53 millions gallons of Roundup every single year.
The authors of the report say that this and the bulk of other independent, indicting evidence against Roundup has been largely ignored by governments, including in the EU where new data requirements will demand that proper investigation into thesafetyof GMOs is conducted. Rather than rely on industry-funded pseudoscience that claims GMOs aresafe, authors say those working for thepeoplemust rise to the occasion and take charge in having proper safety evaluations conducted on the safety of Roundup.
“The public … has been kept in the dark byindustryand regulators about the ability of glyphosate and Roundup to cause malformations,” write the authors in their summary. “[T]he work of independent scientists who have drawn attention to the herbicide’s teratogenic effects has been ignored, denigrated, or dismissed … They have also contributed to the growing division between independent and industryscience, which in turn erodes public trust in the regulatory process.”
Sources for this story include:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/…
Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/032920_Roundup_birth_defects.html#ixzz1b9AvGur9
(via anti-propaganda)
India files biopiracy lawsuit against Monsanto, says biotech giant is stealing nature for corporate gain
India files biopiracy lawsuit against Monsanto, says biotech giant is stealing nature for corporate gain
(Source: addtoany.com, via sustainable-sam)
An anti-Monsanto crop circle made by farmers and volunteers in the Philippines. By Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace HO/A.P. Images.
this makes me happy.
(via newanddifferentsun)
Top Genetically Engineered Crops
- Corn: Our number-one agricultural commodity. In 2000, 79.5 million acres of harvested cropland in the U.S. were corn, 25% of which was genetically engineered. This includes Bt and Roundup Ready corn varieties.
- Soy: The number-two U.S. agricultural commodity. Sixty percent of processed foods contain soy ingredients, and 82% of edible fats and oils consumed in the U.S. are soy-based. In 2000, 54% of the 74.5 million acres of soybeans grown in the U.S. was Roundup Ready soy.
- Potato: Currently, the only GE potato is a Burbank Russet variety, marketed under the name NewLeaf. This Bt-producing plant is lethal to the Colorado potato beetle – and possibly to beneficial insects.
- Tomato: The first GE tomato, the Flavr Savr, was introduced commercially in 1994, but flopped because it proved tasteless. Since then, other varieties, including a cherry tomato, have been genetically engineered to delay ripening and extend shelf life.
- Canola: Of the 15 million acres of canola grown in the U.S. and Canada annually, 35% is GE, mostly for herbicide-resistance.
- Cottonseed Oil: In 2000, 61% of the 15.5 million acres of cotton grown in the U.S. was genetically engineered. Every year, half a million tons of cottonseed oil makes its way into salad dressings, baked goods and snack foods. About 1.4 million tons of cottonseed meal is fed to livestock annually.
- Papaya: More than one third of Hawaiian papayas have been genetically engineered to withstand the papaya ringspot virus. Organic papaya growers in Hawaii worry that the pollen from GE papaya trees will contaminate their crops.
- Radicchio: Currently one variety of radicchio, called Seed Link, has been genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glufosinate.
- Squash: Several varieties of summer squash have been genetically engineered to resist mosaic viruses. Some scientists are concerned that resistance to the virus may spread to weedy relatives, such as gourds, found in the U.S., creating invasive superweeds.
- Salmon: A company called Aqua Bounty has engineered a salmon with genes from two different fish species so that it grows much more quickly than non-GE salmon. The company now seeks FDA approval to market this fish for human consumption. Escaped into the environment, (which is inevitable on fish farms), the GE fish may be larger and more aggressive, eat more food, and mate more often, though their offspring are less fit to survive in the wild, raising the possibility of wild species extinction. Human health effects are also relatively unknown. Currently, research on transgenic strains of 35 fish species world-wide is underway.
- Golden Rice
- Alfalfa
- Sugar beets
- Pigs
