Pesticide use ramping up as GMO crop technology backfires: study

U.S. farmers are using more hazardous pesticides to fight weeds and insects due largely to heavy adoption of genetically modified crop technologies that are sparking a rise of "superweeds" and hard-to-kill insects, according to a newly released study. 

Genetically engineered crops have led to an increase in overall pesticide use, by 404 million pounds from the time they were introduced in 1996 through 2011, according to the report by Charles Benbrook, a research professor at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.
 

Of that total, herbicide use increased over the 16-year period by 527 million pounds while insecticide use decreased by 123 million pounds. 

Herbicide-tolerant crops were the first genetically modified crops introduced to world, rolled out by Monsanto Co. in 1996, first in "Roundup Ready" soybeans and then in corn, cotton and other crops. Roundup Ready crops are engineered through transgenic modification to tolerate dousings of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. 

In recent years, more than two dozen weed species have become resistant to Roundup's chief ingredient glyphosate, causing farmers to use increasing amounts both of glyphosate and other weedkilling chemicals to try to control the so-called "superweeds. Resistant weeds have become a major problem for many farmers reliant on GE crops, and are now driving up the volume of herbicide needed each year by about 25 percent," Benbrook said.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on the environmental and health risks posed by GMO foods, click here.

Study finds tumors in rats fed on Monsanto's GM corn

Would He Oppose GM Foods?

French scientists said on [September 19] that rats fed on Monsanto's genetically modified corn or exposed to its top-selling weedkiller suffered tumors and multiple organ damage. Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen and colleagues said rats fed on a diet containing NK603 - a seed variety made tolerant to dousings of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller - or given water with Roundup at levels permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard diet. 

 The animals on the GM diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. 

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London.  

The researchers said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group. 

 GMOs are deeply unpopular in Europe and many other countries, but dominate key crops in the United States after Monsanto in 1996 introduced a soybean genetically altered to tolerate Monsanto's Roundup weed killer. Seralini was part of a team that has voiced previous safety concerns based on a shorter rat study 

in a scientific paper published in 2009. This new study takes things a step further by tracking the animals throughout their two-year lifespan. Seralini believes his latest lifetime rat tests give a more realistic and authoritative view of risks than the 90-day feeding trials that form the basis of GM crop approvals, since three months is only the equivalent of early adulthood in rats.

Note: For disturbing photos and more from the above long-term study on the dangers of GM food, click here. For an excellent article and a great two-minute video clearly explaining the major dangers of GM food, click here. For a powerful summary of the health risks from GM foods, click here.

USDA Greenlights Monsanto's Utterly Useless New GMO Corn

—By Tom Philpott

| Mon Jan. 23, 2012 1:15 PM PST

 

You've got to keep an eye on US regulatory agencies in the second half of December. That's when watchdog journalists like me tend to take time off—and regulators like to sneak gifts to the industries they're supposed to be regulating. This year, I was alert enough to detect this gift from the FDA to the meat industry; but the USDA caught me napping. The agency made two momentous announcements on GMO crops, neither of which got much media scrutiny. It deregulated Monsanto's so-called drought-tolerant corn, and it prepared to deregulate Dow's corn engineered to withstand the herbicides 2,4-D and dicamba. More on the later this week.


The drought-tolerant corn decision, which came down on Dec. 21, was momentous occasion, because it marked the first deregulation of a GMO crop with a "complex" trait. What I mean by that is, the other GMOs on the market have simple, one-gene traits: a gene that confers resistance to a particular herbicide, like Monsanto's Roundup Ready seed or a gene that expresses the toxic-to-bugs properties of the bacteria Bt, as in Monsanto's Bt seed. But a plant's use of water is a complex process involving several genes; there's no single "drought tolerant" gene. Generating such traits in plants that succeed in field conditions has been considerably more tricky for the agrichemical giants than than simple traits.
 

And indeed, Monsanto has staked huge PR capital on its ability to do just that. In a famous 2008 press release, the company declared it would "double yield in its three core crops of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030, compared to a base year of  2000," using patented seeds that will simultaneously "reduce by one-third the amount of key resources required to grow crops." It placed complex traits like drought tolerance at the center of its effort,  promising seeds that would "result in more production per unit of land, and reduced use of energy, fertilizer and water per unit produced."

The drought-tolerant corn the USDA signed off on in December is the first approved crop of that kind. The trouble is, it doesn't work very well. The USDA acknowledged as much in its Nov. 11 Final Environmental Assessment of the crop. It makes clear that the product's "drought tolerance" extends only to "moderate" drought conditions, and it has the same "minimum water requirements" as conventional corn.

And then it drops this bombshell, citing Monsanto's own field tests:    READ MORE

Congress' Big Gift to Monsanto

—By Tom Philpott

| Mon Jul. 2, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

 

If you want your crops to bear fruit, you have to feed the soil. Few industries understand that old farming truism better than ag-biotech—the few companies that dominate the market for genetically modified seeds and other novel farming technologies. And they realize that the same wisdom applies to getting what you want in Washington, DC.

According to this 2010 analysis from Food & Water Watch, the ag-biotech industry spent $547.5 million between 1999 and 2009. It employed more than 100 lobbying firms in 2010 alone, FWW reports, in addition to their own in-house lobbying teams.

The gusher continues. The most famous ag-biotech firm of all, Monsanto, spent $1.4 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2012, after shelling out $6.3 million total last year, "more than any other agribusiness firm except the tobacco company Altria," reports the money-in-politics tracker OpenSecrets.org. Industry trade groups like the Biotechnology Industry Organization and Croplife America have weighed in with $1.8 million and $524,000, respectively.

What fruits have been borne by such generous fertilizing of the legislative terrain? It's impossible to tie the fate of any bit of legislation directly to an industry's lobbying power, but here are two unambiguous legislative victories won on the Hill this month by Monsanto and its peers.   READ MORE
 

Climate Change Is Already Shrinking Crop Yields

—By Tom Philpott

| Wed Jul. 4, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

 

For years now, people have wondered how climate change will affect farming. How will humanity feed itself during a time of rising temperatures and recurring drought?

Here in the US, we're starting to get a taste of things to come—and it's bitter. Brutal heat is now roiling the main growing regions for corn, soy, and wheat, the biggest US crops. According to Bloomberg News, 71 percent of the Midwest is experiencing "drier-than-normal conditions," and temperatures are projected to be above 90 degrees in large swaths of key corn/soy-growing states Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana through July 7 if not longer.

As a result, Goldman Sachs projects that this year's corn yields will come in 7.5 percent below the USDA's projection of 166 bushels an acre. (Why is a Wall Street behemoth like Goldman Sachs fussing over corn yields? That's another story, altogether, and an interesting one). Accordingly, crop prices are rising steeply, Bloomberg reports.

Of course, we can't tie any individual heat wave to long-term climate trends—there's plenty of random weather variation even in times of climate stability. But we do know that hot, dry weather can stunt plant growth and reduce yields—and we also know that we can expect more hot, dry weather in key growing regions as the climate warms up.

I hope the current heat wave gets policymakers thinking about the effect of climate change on food, because for for a long time, the consensus was that global warming might be more or less neutral for agriculture. Sure, the thinking went, climate change will likely make droughts more common and make some already-hot areas too hot for farming; but it will also lengthen the growing season in cold-winter areas like the US Midwest, perhaps increasing crop yields. Also, all that carbon dioxide we're pumping into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels would be manna to plants, allowing them to grow faster. These factors, many thought, would largely cancel each other out, and mean that climate change would have no great effect on global food production.

But back in 2008, a pair of researchers from the USDA and Columbia University shattered that comforting idea.  READ MORE

 

How Monsanto Is Sabotaging Efforts to Label Genetically Modified Food

Lobbyists from the biotech industry are ardently opposing GMO labeling.

June 26, 2012

As the 2012 Farm Bill continues to take shape in the halls of the United States Congress, the immense influence of corporate interests is on display.

On June 21 the United States Senate voted overwhelmingly against the Sanders Amendment that would have allowed states to pass legislation that required food and beverage products to label whether or not they contain genetically engineered ingredients.

The amendment, proposed by Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is particularly relevant as many states prepare to vote on a ballot initiatives that would require such labelling of genetically modified (GM) foods.

Lobbyists from the biotech industry have ardently opposed GMO labelling. These opponents argue that because food labelling has historically been handled by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), it is a federal issue and, therefore, individual states do not have the right to implement such legislation. Indeed, in the case of Vermont, Sanders' home state, Monsanto successfully intimidated the state legislature from voting on a bill that would have required GMO labelling.

Patty Lovera, the assistant director of Food and Water Watch, explained that states planning to vote on GM labelling in November could face a legal fight to defend their right to enact such laws.

  READ MORE

Cheerleading for Monsanto? The Shocking Lack of Difference Between Oxford University Press and Fox News

Photo Credit: Nrbelex

Why is an esteemed academic press publishing books that lack even a basic citation of sources?

April 9, 2012

Eighteen months ago I read a book that changed my life. Yeah, yeah, I know... sounds corny. But it's not what you think. This book changed my life not because of what it said but because of what it didn't say.

On a nothing-special summer afternoon in 2010, I sat in the Cambridge Public Library preparing a speech on something I'd been studying for decades. I plugged "world hunger" into the library's computer. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know popped up.

Perfect, I thought. I knew I would have differences with the book because I'd just read a critique of the views of its author, Robert Paarlberg, by my daughter Anna Lappé on the Foreign Policy website. But I'm always eager to know how those with whom I disagree make their case. Noticing that Food Politics was published by Oxford University Press, I felt confident I could count on it being a credibly argued and sourced counterpoint.

So I began reading.

"I couldn't believe my eyes" doesn't do justice to the shock I experienced.

The book's subtitle suggests coverage of essential food issues and its back cover indicates Food Politics is not just another example of "conflicting claims and accusations from advocates," but rather "maps this contested terrain." Yet, I was finding only one piece of the "map" with key issues at the center of the global food debate omitted altogether. But what was jaw-dropping for me was that Food Politics lacked any citations for the book's many startling claims.   READ MORE

Outrageous Lies Monsanto and Friends Are Trying to Pass off to Kids as Science

The claims made in a book from the biotechnology industry are laughable. But these blatant lies are passed off as 'science' for schoolchildren.

March 20, 2012

It's not enough that the biotech industry -- led by multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, BAS, and Dupont -- is poisoning our food and our planet. It's also poisoning young minds.

In a blatant attempt at brainwashing, the Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) has widely circulated what it calls a Biotechnology Basics Activity Book for kids, to be used by "Agriculture and Science Teachers." The book -- called Look Closer at Biotechnology -- looks like a science workbook, but reads more like a fairy tale. Available on the council's Web site, its colorful pages are full of friendly cartoon faces, puzzles, helpful hints for teachers -- and a heavy dose of outright lies about the likely effects of genetic engineering on health, the environment, world hunger and the future of farming.

CBI's lies are designed specifically for children, and intended for use in classrooms.

  READ MORE

12 DAYS to Stop DOW’s 2-4-D Corn

12 days to stop Dow's 2-4-D corn! PHOTO: Panna

17 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by Bev Hill in Food, Food Politics, Health, Food & Your Health, Chemicals/Pesticides in Your Food 

Dow and USDA hope to quietly approve a new genetically engineered seed line that basically swaps RoundUp (glyphosate) out for an even worse weedkiller (2,4-D).

As you may have heard, the pesticide treadmill is catching up with Monsanto, as glyphosate-resistent “superweeds” run rampant and their blockbuster RoundUp Ready product line nears the end of its life-cycle. Dow wants to drop in an even more toxic herbicide (2,4-D) to keep the treadmill running at high speed. We have 12 days to stop this.

Tell USDA we want off this ride» Urge the agency to reject Dow’s petition for approval of its 2,4-D resistant seed lines. Now, before the public comment period ends, is the time to speak up and say no.

Dow aims to get 2,4-D-resistant CORN to market this year, SOY next year and COTTON in 2015. These three crops dominate U.S. agriculture, covering over 100 million acres of mono-cropped countryside, driving the pesticide market. If they get their foot in the door with corn, there is little chance that soy and cotton will be a problem for approval.     READ MORE

 

Monsanto Accuses US Farmers of 'Evading EPA Rules'

Monsanto blames farmers for the emergence of
'superbugs' like the Bt-resistant corn rootworm.
(photo: Ian Marsman/flickr)

By Bloomberg News

18 Febrary 12

Makers of genetically modified seeds say more farmers evading EPA rules

onsanto Co. and other seedmakers reported a threefold increase last year in U.S. farmers caught violating rules intended to stop insects from developing resistance to genetically modified corn.

The rules affect farmers planting seeds modified to produce a toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide. The Environmental Protection Agency requires those growers to also plant an adjacent area - a so-called refuge - of non-Bt corn so that bugs feed on both types of corn and don't become immune to the toxin.

About 41 percent of 3,053 farmers inspected in 2011 failed to fully comply with the refuge requirement, according to data that Monsanto provided last week in an e-mail.   READ MORE

 

Monsanto petition tells Obama: ‘Cease FDA ties to Monsanto’

(Nigel Treblin - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

 

By Elizabeth Flock

A two-year-old Food and Drug Administration appointment is stirring up online protests once more.

In 2009, President Obama appointed Michael Taylor as a senior adviser for the FDA. Consumer groups protested the appointment because Taylor had formerly served as a vice president for Monsanto, the controversial agricultural multinational at the forefront of genetically modified food.

In recent days, a petition calling for the former Monsanto VP’s ouster is gaining steam.

“President Obama, I oppose your appointment of Michael Taylor,” the petition on Signon.org reads. “Taylor is the same person who was Food Safety Czar at the FDA when genetically modified organisms were allowed into the U.S. food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is a travesty.”

Over the weekend, the petition was signed by thousands of people. At this writing, it has around 60,000 signatures of its 75,000 goal.

Requests for comment from Monsanto and the FDA were not immediately returned.
READ MORE

USDA Certified Organic’s Dirty Little Secret: Neotame

By Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
Just when we thought that buying “Organic” was safe, we run headlong into the deliberate poisoning of our organic food supply by the FDA in collusion with none other than the folks who brought us Aspartame. NutraSweet, a former Monsanto asset, has developed a new and improved version of this neurotoxin called Neotame. 

Neotame has similar structure to aspartame — except that, from it’s structure, appears to be even more toxic than aspartame. This potential increase in toxicity will make up for the fact that less will be used in diet drinks. Like aspartame, some of the concerns include gradual neurotoxic and immunotoxic damage from the combination of the formaldehyde metabolite (which is toxic at extremely low doses) and the excitotoxic amino acid. (Holisticmed.com)

But surely, this product would be labeled! NOT SO!!! For this little gem, no labeling required. And it is even included in USDA Certified Organic food.

The food labeling requirements required for aspartame have now been dropped for Neotame, and no one is clear why this was allowed to happen. Neotame has been ruled acceptable, and without being included on the list of ingredients, for:

• USDA Certified Organic food items.
• Certified Kosher products with the official letter k inside the circle on labels. (Janet Hull)

Let me make this perfectly clear. Neotame does not have to be included in ANY list of ingredients! So, if you buy processed food, whether USDA Certified Organic or not, that food most likely will contain Neotame because it is cost-effective, and since no one knows it is there, there is no public backlash similar to what is happening with Aspartame. A win/win situation!
But that’s not all. Just love chowing down on that delicious steak? Well, that cow most likely will have been fed with feed containing…..you guessed it…..Neotame! A product called “Sweetos,” which is actually composed of Neotame, is being substituted for molasses in animal feed.

“Sweetos is an economical substitute for molasses. Sweetos guarantees the masking of unpleasant tastes and odor and improves the palatability of feed. This product will be economical for farmers and manufacturers of cattle feed. It can also be used in mineral mixture,” said Craig Petray, CEO, The NutraSweet Company, a division of Searle, which is a part of Monsanto. (Bungalow Bill)  READ MORE

 Lots of links here to look over on Neotame

Occupy vs. Monsanto: Activists, Farmers Fight the Corporation They Fear Will Take Over All America's Crops

Occupy comes out to support a lawsuit that hopes to turn the tables on corporate farming behemoth Monsanto.

February 6, 2012

Monsanto, if you will, is the 1 percent of Big Agriculture--the scourge of small farmers everywhere. But now those farmers are fighting back, backed by activists from Occupy Wall Street.

First, some history. In 1982, Monsanto scientists were the first to genetically modify a plant cell. Three years later, the US Patent Office ruled that plants were a patentable subject matter. 

By 1985, Monsanto had already become a corporate giant by creating RoundUp, the most popular herbicide in the world. Now that it had the legal protection of seed patents in addition to the biotechnology to genetically manipulate its seeds, Monsanto scientists engineered a specific brand of Monsanto seeds that were RoundUp-resistant—unlike organic, natural seeds, these seeds are sterile and have to be re-planted each year, ensuring that customers return year after year to replenish their supply.  

In order to achieve a monopoly over the market, and keep farmers from saving their own seed as they have done for centuries, Monsanto begin to purchase as many seeds as possible—spending $8 billion and acquiring over 20 seed companies over the past decade alone. Today, Monsanto controls 93 percent of soybean crops, 86 percent of corn crops, 93 percent of cotton crops, and 93 percent of canola seed crops in the United States alone. 

Monsanto is far from finished.  READ MORE

Mexican Maize Pollution by GMOs

Farmers raising GM corn safe for you to eat.

Three Articles from NGIN 14mar02

• BBC's Crossing Continents on Mexican Maize scandal
• Preserving the integrity of Indian corn
• (PART II) Safeguarding Sacred Corn
  
  

  Crossing Continents Mexico

  BBC Radio Four Reporter: Nick Caistor 14mar02

  Southern Mexico is the cradle of maize, and a hot spot of bio-diversity. But is that heritage now being threatened by inadvertent planting of genetically modified maize? Nick Caistor reports on the fall-out of the surprise discovery of GM maize 60 miles from the nearest GM plantation.
  
  Amado Ramirez has had a great business idea. He lives in Oaxaca, where Mexicans have grown maize for thousands of years.
  The potential of maize
  People here in Oaxaca, in the rest of Mexico, and increasingly in the southern USA, eat tortillas, round maize pancakes, with every meal.
  Maize is more than a food in Mexico - it is a way of life
  
  Amado Ramirez:
  "Maize is more than a food in Mexico, it's a way of life," Amado says in his spruce new tortilla shop Itanoni in Oaxaca city. "So I thought, why not make it a gourmet product, putting as much care and attention into making tortillas as chefs do into other delicacies."
  
  To make his tortillas as authentic as possible, Amado has his own suppliers of maize grown on the mountainous slopes that surround the city. Then he grinds it and bakes it under strict supervision in his shop.
  
  But now his business is facing disaster.
  
  Discovering the GM link   READ MORE