Monsanto, Dow Chemical Dioxin Protected by US Courts and EPA

Cassandra Anderson 

NaturalSociety February 7, 2012

American veterans and the entire country of Viet Nam affected by Agent Orange have been shafted beyond imagination due to corruption within the US government and US courts. US courts have protected Monsanto and Dow Chemical from liability and criminal prosecution. The US government has shielded Monsanto and Dow from the massive cost of medical treatment for victims and environmental remediation cleanup costs that would drive these corporations into bankruptcy.

Before we delve further into the issue, it’s important to detail what exactly dioxin is. Dioxin has a half life of 100 years or more when it is below the surface, leached into soil or embedded in river or stream sediment. Dioxin was generated as a byproduct of herbicide 2,4,5-T made by Monsanto and Dow, the top 2 producers of Agent Orange. It causes cancer, birth defects, liver damage and other major health problems.

Monsanto & Dow’s 2,4,5-T dioxin laden-herbicide was used in the US for agricultural purposes in the 1940′s before it was used for chemical warfare in Viet Nam from the early 1960′s through 1971. It was phased out in the late 1970′s. Now, let’s discuss the political situation behind this carcinogen.

US Government and US Court Dioxin Cover-Ups

• President Reagans’s administration, in cahoots with the CDC, thwarted a $43 million Congressional Study of Agent Orange in 1987 to protect itself and its corporate pals Monsanto & Dow from accountability to US veterans and the people of Viet Nam.

• US Courts dismissed veterans’ Agent Orange lawsuits based on a Supreme Court precedent, known as the Feres Doctrine, freeing the government of responsibility for deaths and injuries related to military service.

• The Supreme Court refused to hear American and Vietnamese victims’ lawsuits against Monsanto, Dow and other Agent Orange manufacturers on 3 separate occasions. Remember that the Supreme Court collects their checks from the federal government.

Atrocious Criminal Acts By Monsanto & Dow

• Agent Orange makers hide behind government contractor immunity, despite the fact that dioxin contaminated herbicide 2,4,5-T was produced long before they were contractors for the government (50 million tons of the herbicide was sprayed in the US per year). No modifications were used for Monsanto & Dow’s herbicide — half the ingredients in Agent Orange — so the immunity defense falls flat.

• Boehringer, a German 2,4,5-T herbicide producer notified Dow in 1957 about dioxin hazards and that dioxin could be eliminated by slow cooking the herbicide for about 12 hours. It appears that Dow and Monsanto continued cooking 2,4,5-T quickly in 45 minutes. Higher output led to higher profits. Monsanto’s formula contained high levels of dioxin and was dirtier than Dow’s product.

• Monsanto was not only aware in 1950 that dioxin was a health danger, but they also created a fraudulent health study.

• In 1965 Dow met in secret with other Agent Orange manufacturers to discuss the toxicity hazards of dioxin and their fear over a government investigation and restrictive regulations.

US Veterans Shafted By the Kangaroo Court

Judge Jack Weinstein of the US Federal Court of the Eastern District of New York committed the following offenses in several class action suits filed by veterans against Monsanto & Dow:

• Weinstein appointed attorneys to represent the veterans and then intimidated the attorneys into agreeing to a ‘nuisance’ settlement of $180 million- nowhere near enough money to cover the medical treatment of hundreds of thousands of injured vets.

• Weinstein rejected the veterans’ expert studies, instead of allowing a jury to decide on the credibility of the expert witnesses; Weinstein created a new rule of law from the bench.

• Weinstein based his ruling on Monsanto’s expert study that was later proven to be fraudulent.

• Weinstein dismissed all other veterans’ lawsuits against Monsanto and Dow.

• Weinstein took over a case that was unlawfully transferred to his federal court as it had been filed in the state of Texas. He dismissed that case.

• Astonishingly, Weistein created a second new rule of law to protect Monsanto and Dow. Weinstein invented immunity for government contractors!

Weinstein’s excuse for the government contractor defense was that if contractors were made to pay, they would pass the cost on to the government, so they were therefore immune. Weinstein’s new law was created from the bench instead of law passed through Congress!

Weinsteins’s law has now been extended to all government supply contractors (even non-military contractors) in the courts.

Viet Nam

Approximately 11 million gallons of Agent Orange was dumped on Viet Nam between 1962 to 1970. It is estimated that Agent Orange is responsible for 400,000 deaths, 3 million victims of disease and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

Over 14 million acres of Vietnamese forests were sprayed. Agent Orange was also dumped in water supplies.

In 2004, Vietnamese victims filed a lawsuit against Dow, Monsanto and other manufacturers of Agent Orange. Judge Weinstein (yes, the same Judge Weinstein) presided over this case and dismissed it. Weinstein used the excuse that Monsanto and Dow had government sovereign immunity that extended to them because they were government contractors. He also ruled that Agent Orange was not considered a poison during that period, under international law.

The Supreme Court refused to hear this case, too.

The stated purpose of using Agent Orange was to deny the enemy cover in forested areas through defoliation. However, the US Army did contract studies in 1943 of the effects of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (the other ingredient of Agent Orange) on cereal grains, including rice, and developed the concept of using aerial herbicide spraying to destroy enemy crops to disrupt the food supply. Obviously, poisoning the enemy, farmland and civilians was a chemical warfare strategy used by the US government.

Monsanto Immunity

Currently, there is a court case pending against Monsanto’s dioxin contaminated 2,4,5-T herbicide filed by parties who lived near the plant where it was produced in West Virginia. The judge in that case, Paul G. Gardephe, denied Monsanto immunity! Judge Gardephe asserted that because Monsanto burned dioxin waste in open pits and the US government was not aware of this practice, nor did they evaluate it for hazard, Monsanto’s contractor defense was denied.

Fate of US Veterans

In 2003, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision allowing veterans to sue Monsanto, Dow and other Agent Orange manufacturers directly.

The government has responded, under the Obama regime, by passing the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, which allows the automatic funding of veterans’ Agent Orange claims. While Monsanto & Dow appear to have considerable liability, the cost of healthcare and hospitalization of affected veterans is paid by American taxpayers.

More than 2 million Americans served in Viet Nam. The Veterans Administration claims they have no idea how many vets have been treated for Agent Orange injuries, or how much taxpayer money has been spent. The EPA is also involved in the cover-up and has been delaying an assessment report on dioxin since 1985 to protect plastic, chlorine, paper, herbicide and agricultural industries.

For more information:

http://www.usvetdsp.com/agentorange.htm

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1991/07/mm0791_06.html

http://japanfocus.org/-Fred_A_-Wilcox/3662

Boehringer Monsanto Dioxin Report

Explore More:

1. Outrageous: Agent Orange Maker Monsanto Seeks Return to Vietnam for GMO Crops
2. Carcinogenic Dioxin Set Free: EPA Kneels to Monsanto and Big Agriculture
3. EPA Delays Dioxin Hazard Report Once Again Due to Industry Pressure
4. Military Veterans Win PTSD Health Settlement
5. How to Stop the Resurgence of Agent Orange in Your Food Supply | Vital Activism
6. Breaking: Monsanto Forced Out of UK by Activists

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/white-house-us-courts-and-epa-shaft-veterans-to-protect-monsanto/#ixzz1m7oqoDId

Another Fox to Guard Henhouse? Former Monsanto VP May Be Named To Head FDA Safety Working Group

By Susie Madrak Tuesday Jul 07, 2009 7:00pm

Sometimes I'm just rendered speechless, and this is one of those times. Natasha Chart via Sustainable Food at Change.org:

Obama's considering appointing a former Monsanto vice president, Mike Taylor, to head the Food Safety Working Group at the FDA.

As Jill Richardson writes at LaVidaLocavore at the link above, Taylor thinks the FDA wastes too much time on food safety inspections at meat packing plants. Further, he believes that one of their main problems is that they have to slow down their line speed too much.

Everyone who's read anything about the horrendous working conditions at US meatpacking plants knows that incomplete kills before slaughter and worker injuries increase dramatically when line speeds increase.

As also noted at the Ethicurean, Taylor is the reason milk from rBGH/rBST cows doesn't have to be labeled. Bovine growth hormone is perfectly safe, after all. Except for cows, or humans who drink its breakdown products in milk.

So yes, Mike Taylor is the person we have to thank for putting pus from mastitis-infected cows into the milk supply, and exposing milk-drinking Americans by the millions to greater cancer risks.

This guy is heading up a food safety working group.

I'm just swimming in the changeiness.

Kids, if you care about your food, you know what to do:

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Or click here.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/fox-guard-henhouse-former-monsanto-vp

Also see the FDA announcement:

FDA NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: July 7, 2009

Media Inquiries: George Strait, 301-796-4829; george.strait@fda.hhs.gov
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

Noted Food Safety Expert Michael R. Taylor Named Advisor to FDA Commissioner
Michael R. Taylor, J.D., a nationally recognized food safety expert and research professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services, will return to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to serve as senior advisor to the commissioner.

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm170842.htm

HR 875/S425: Lose your property for growing food?

GROUND CONTROL

Big Brother legislation could mean prosecution, fines up to $1 million

Posted: March 16, 2009
8:56 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress.

Food Safety Modernization Act

House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenburg, conducts research for Monsanto – the world's leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed.

DeLauro's act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food production at all levels – and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations.

Michael Olson, host of the Food Chain radio show and author of "Metro Farm," told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.

"We need somebody to watch over us when we're eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there," he said. "But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don't need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself."

The legislation would establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services "to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."

Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.

Under the legislation's broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.

Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance. They would review food safety records and conduct surveillance of animals, plants, products or the environment.

"What the government will do is bring in industry experts to tell them how to manage all this stuff," Olson said. "It's industry that's telling government how to set these things up. What it always boils down to is who can afford to have the most influence over the government. It would be those companies that have sufficient economies of scale to be able to afford the influence – which is, of course, industrial agriculture."

Farms and food producers would be forced to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors upon request to determine whether food is contaminated, to ensure they are in compliance with food safety laws and to maintain government tracking records. Refusal to register, permit inspector access or testing of food or equipment would be prohibited.

"What is going to happen is that local agriculture will end up suffering through some onerous protocols designed for international agriculture that they simply don't need," Olson said. "Thus, it will be a way for industrial agriculture to manage local agriculture."

Under the act, every food producer must have a written food safety plan describing likely hazards and preventative controls they have implemented and must abide by "minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water."

"That opens a whole can of worms," Olson said. "I think that's where people are starting to freak out about losing organic agriculture. Who is going to decide what the minimum standards are for fertilization or anything else? The government is going to bring in big industry and say we are setting up these protocols, so what do you think we should do? Who is it going to bring in to ask? The government will bring in people who have economies of scale who have that kind of influence."

DeLauro's act calls for the Food Safety Administration to create a "national traceability system" to retrieve history, use and location of each food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.

Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.

"That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition," he said. "Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There's a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can't afford to do all of these things."

Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.

"Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore," he said. "We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we're doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else."

Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of "experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia" to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.

According to the act, "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."

Each violation and each separate day the producer is in defiance of the law would be considered a separate offense and an additional penalty. The act suggests federal administrators consider the gravity of the violation, the degree of responsibility and the size and type of business when determining penalties.

Criminal sanctions may be imposed if contaminated food causes serious illness or death, and offenders may face fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years.

"It's just frightening what can happen with good intentions," Olson said. "It's probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn't need government because it takes care of itself."

Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act

Another "food safety" bill that has organic and small farmers worried is Senate Bill 425, or the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Brown's bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson. It was introduced in September and has been referred to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Some say the legislation could also put small farmers out of business.

Like HR 875, the measure establishes a nationwide "traceability system" monitored by the Food and Drug Administration for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging and distribution of food. It would cost $40 million over three years.

"We must ensure that the federal government has the ability and authority to protect the public, given the global nature of the food supply," Brown said when he introduced the bill. He suggested the FDA and USDA have power to declare mandatory recalls.

The government would track food shipped in interstate commerce through a recordkeeping and audit system, a secure, online database or registered identification. Each farmer or producer would be required to maintain records regarding the purchase, sale and identification of their products.

A 13-member advisory committee of food safety and tracking technology experts, representatives of the food industry, consumer advocates and government officials would assist in implementing the traceability system.

The bill calls for the committee to establish a national database or registry operated by the Food and Drug Administration. It also proposes an electronic records database to identify sales of food and its ingredients "establishing that the food and its ingredients were grown, prepared, handled, manufactured, processed, distributed, shipped, warehoused, imported, and conveyed under conditions that ensure the safety of the food."

It states, "The records should include an electronic statement with the date of, and the names and addresses of all parties to, each prior sale, purchase, or trade, and any other information as appropriate."

If government inspectors find that a food item is not in compliance, they may force producers to cease distribution, recall the item or confiscate it.

"If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products," Sen. Brown said in a Sept. 4, 2008, statement. "Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public."

Recalls of contaminated food are usually voluntary; however, in his weekly radio address on March 15, President Obama announced he's forming a Food Safety Working Group to propose new laws and stop corruption of the nation's food.

The group will review, update and enforce food safety laws, which Obama said "have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt."

The president said outbreaks from contaminated foods, such as a recent salmonella outbreak among consumers of peanut products, have occurred more frequently in recent years due to outdated regulations, fewer inspectors, scaled back inspections and a lack of information sharing between government agencies.

"In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president but as a parent," Obama said. "No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm."

The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on the legislation, including the following:

• Obama and his cronies or his puppetmasters are trying to take total control – nationalize everything, disarm the populace, control food, etc. We are seeing the formation of a total police state.

• Well ... that's not very " green " of Obama. What's his real agenda?

• This is getting way out of hand! Isn't it enough the FDA already allows poisons in our foods?

• If you're starving, no number of guns will enable you to stay free. That's the whole idea behind this legislation. He who controls the food really makes the rules.

• The government is terrified of the tax loss. Imagine all the tax dollars lost if people actually grew their own vegetables! Imagine if people actually coordinated their efforts with family, friends and neighbors. People could be in no time eating for the price of their own effort. ... Oh the horror of it all! The last thing the government wants is for us to be self-sufficient.

• They want to make you dependent upon government. I say no way! already the government is giving away taxes from my great great grandchildren and now they want to take away my food, my semi-auto rifles, my right to alternative holistic medicine? We need a revolution, sheeple! Wake up! They want fascism ... can you not see that?

•  The screening processes will make it very expensive for smaller farmers, where bigger agriculture corporations can foot the bill.

• If anything it just increases accountability, which is arguably a good thing. It pretty much says they'll only confiscate your property if there are questions of contamination and you don't comply with their inspections. I think the severity of this has been blown out of proportion by a lot of conjecture.

• Don't waste your time calling the criminals in D.C. and begging them to act like humans. This will end with a bloody revolt.

• The more I examine this (on the surface) seemingly innocuous bill the more I hate it. It is a coward's ploy to push out of business small farms and farmers markets without actually making them illegal because many will choose not to operate due to the compliance issue.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92002

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION TODAY AND KEEP THE PRESSURE ON TO STOP FACTORY FARMING AND GMO'S!

Spermicidal Breakfast Cereal

By Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, ZNet.

What would happen if contraceptive corn or antibiotic wheat accidentally made it to the supermarket? Nobody knows, but that isn't stopping agribusiness from pursuing these crops.

This article was translated from the Spanish by Miguel Alvarado.

Just when the global diatribe over food and genetically modified crops (GM) is heating up in tone and breadth, the corporations that create them are staging a showcase for a fresh batch of transgenics.

These new GM crops, known as biopharmaceuticals, or biopharms for short, produce industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals within their tissues. The plants, including soy, rice, corn and tobacco, are genetically altered to produce substances such as growth hormones, curdling agents (coagulants), vaccines for humans (as well as farm animals), human antibodies, industrial enzymes, contraceptives and even pregnancy deterrents.

Scientists and corporations alike embrace biopharmaceuticals with glee: "Imagine being able to harvest enough globulin (a compound that fights arthritis) for the whole world in all of fifty acres?" writes Dr. William O. Robertson for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Imagine being able to find the protein healthy people use to prevent arthritis or breast cancer and being able to produce it in large quantities in rice and tobacco."

ProdiGene, a leader in the field, calculates that by the end of this decade, 10% of the corn produced in the US will be biopharmaceutical. The volume of biopharmaceutical drugs and chemicals could reach the $200 billion figure, according to Dow AgroSciences' Guy Cardinau.

Warnings

But some scientists and ecologists are concerned. Will it be possible to contain and segregate such crops, fruit and seed, in order to avoid a biological Chernobyl?

Is there any guarantee that these products won't accidentally end up at the supermarket? And how can we keep their pollen from fertilizing other fields and reproducing out of control?

"One single mistake from a biotechnology company and we'll be having someone else's prescription medicine for breakfast in our cereal," warns Larry Bohlen, spokesman for Friends of the Earth, an international ecology organization.

"What will happen if the pollen of a transgenic plant containing some kind of drug fertilizes a nearby edible crop?" argues the Erosion, Technology and Concentration Action Group (ETC) in a report published in 2000.

The report continues to ask: "How will the soil microorganisms and insects which benefit agriculture be affected by crops genetically designed to produce industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals? What will happen if animals eat the biopharmaceutical crops? Will the biopharmaceutical proteins be altered during the various stages of growth, harvest and storage? Will they cause allergic reactions?

According to biologist Brian Tokar, professor at the Institute for Social Ecology, the most serious problems concern cross-pollination and unknown effects to insects, soil microorganisms and other native life-forms.

A Little Mishap In Nebraska

There have been mistakes with these crops already. In November 2002, at an agricultural cooperative in Aurora, Nebraska, 500,000 bushels of soy were contaminated with biopharmaceutical corn. One of the coop members harvested an experimental batch of corn for ProdiGene the year before and then proceeded to plant a crop of soy for human consumption in the same field.

During a routine inspection, federal officials from the Department of Agriculture found the corn stalks for ProdiGene growing among the soy plants. By the time they made the discovery, soy from that field was already being stored mixed with the soy of other coop members. Fortunately, the authorities were able to segregate the contaminated grain just before it reached the supermarket aisles.

The company was slapped with a $500,000 fine for negligence; yet, and in spite of such gross near disaster, the government still allows the corporation to continue with biopharmaceutical research as well as keeping the precise nature of the contaminating batch in Nebraska a trade secret. Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, describes the incident as the "Three Mile Island" of biotechnology, in reference to the emergency caused by a nuclear reactor in the 70s.

After the ProdiGene scandal, two industrial corporations which had so far supported transgenic research began to reconsider their positions. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group which represents supermarket distributing companies, expressed concern about the possibility that biopharmaceuticals could end up contaminating food supplies; such concern was also shared by the National Food Processors Association. The president, John Cady, requested strict and mandatory regulations in order to protect food products from being contaminated by biopharms.

Other people don't share such concerns. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a group that represents biotech companies, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, an organization dedicated to Big Farming, are currently lobbying in Washington to obtain support from the federal government in order to weaken biopharmaceutical regulations.

Biological contamination

Transgenic products unfit for human consumption have already contaminated the food chain. At the end of the year 2000, environmental and consumer advocacy groups in the United States discovered that hundreds of american products in the supermarkets had been contaminated with traces of Starlink, a genetically enhanced GM corn that was declared unfit for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Although the Starlink strain was farmed in just 0.04% of the US corn production area, and was only meant for farm animal consumption, it ended up tainting 430 million bushels and to this day keeps showing up regularly in US exports.

"The Starlink discovery in Japan and South Korea, two of the most important US corn consumers, indicates that it could be found anywhere," remarks Meena Raman, from Malaysia, coordinator in Asia for Friends of the Earth Transgenics Program. "Until the US and Aventis (the biotechnology company that created Starlink) controls contamination, no other countries should allow corn imports."

A more severe case of genetic contamination is taking place in Mexico, where the presence of GM corn has been documented since 2001. It continues to show up in rural farming communities, both peasant and indigenous, sown by small farmers who are not aware of the transgenic threat; and it is proliferating rapidly, across wild and mixed varieties, in spite of the Mexican government's ban on transgenic crops, in effect since 1998. This contamination deeply concerns environmentalists, scientists and farmers, since Mexico is the cradle of corn and axis of its diversity, rendering the long term consequences on the environment and human health uncertain.

In Mexico, people are distressed by the possibility that biopharmaceutical corn could be introduced in the country. Silvia Ribeiro, of the ETC organization, expresses great annoyance about the California-based company Epicyte, which ostentatiously declared having developed a spermicidal corn to be used as a contraceptive.

Ribeiro stated in La Jornada: "The potential of spermicidal corn as a biological weapon is outrageous, since it easily interbreeds with other varieties, is capable of going undetected and could lodge itself at the very core of indigenous and farming cultures. We have witnessed the execution of repeated sterilization campaigns performed against indigenous communities. This method is certainly much more difficult to trace."

We cover the world

Where are biopharms cultivated? All over the world. At the molecularfarming.com website, investors solicit the collaboration of farmers willing to lease their land for biopharmaceutical experiments anywhere in the world. They have signed agreements in Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Greece, Zimbabwe, Panama and many other countries.

Activist Beth Burrows first denounced the claims at the Molecular Farming's website. Burrows is president of the Edmonds Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to bioethics and biosecurity issues.

Award-winning journalist Devinder Sharma, an expert in agricultural and nutritional matters who lives in India, comments on molecularfarming.com: "This is part of a global scheme to transfer dirty industries onto the Third World."

"First came the exporting of toxic and industrial recycled waste to developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Now comes the biopharms. In the US there's a huge problem regarding these crops. What are they gonna do? Transfer dirty technology."

Don't worry, be happy

In spite of all this, biopharming advocates assure us that they're perfectly safe. Doctor Allan S. Felsot, an environmental toxicologist at Washington State University considers the use of plants to produce pharmaceuticals and other chemicals "not even a new concept, if we take into account that we've used medicinal plants for centuries."

Felsot insists there's nothing unusual about our breeding human proteins in the tissues of transgenic plants. "The proteins (in question) are the same found in our bodies. Most of them are used as medicine through cellular fermentation. They are very well defined and have been subject to exhaustive research and clinical trials on humans."

Doctor Robertson adds: "The possibilities boggle the mind, the opportunities are impossible to grasp in their totality and the risks appear minimal when they're compared with the risks we have encountered in medicine throughout the years."

What's ahead?

"What will have to happen before the Department of Agriculture takes seriously the fact that millions of people almost ended up consuming experimental drugs and chemicals?" asks Brandon Keim, of the Council for Responsible Genetics in reference to the ProdiGene scandal. "A few sensational deaths? Maybe an increase in debilitating disorders which will only be noticeable some decades later, when it's already too late?"

Biopharmaceuticals are in an experimental stage but the corporations producing them anxiously await the day when federal authorities give them the go-ahead to enter the market.

Carmelo Ruiz is a journalist and a research associate of the Institute for Social Ecology. He has previously published in Grist, E Magazine, the New York Daily News, Corporate Watch, IPS and other media.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18154/

Also Read:

GMO - the real story

GMO Corn Makes Men Sterile

Now do you want labels on your GMO foods?

Click here to take action.

GMO - The Real Story: Spermicides added to grain for population control

Would a chemical corporation knowingly put spermicides into genetically modified crops? Joel Salatin says they do.

 

Last December at the ACRES USA conference in St. Louis I ran into a guy who knew one of the executives at Monsanto. He told me about a conversation he'd had with this fellow regarding genetically modified organisms. The long and short of it was that one of the primary goals of GMOs was as a population control mechanism. I assumed the conversation had been embellished due to paranoia..

So last Friday I had dinner in Minneapolis and met a fellow and his family who are farming north of the twin cities. He had attended Purdue University in Indiana, was an excellent student, and Dow Chemical hired him right out of college. He described the fancy trucks, the fancy dinners, the fancy resort conventions that the company supplied.

His team was working on GMOs and he found out one day that they were putting spermicides into grain to ship strategically to countries around the world where U.S. foreign policy wanted population control. This is part of the U.S. foreign aid package. Appalled at this discovery, he asked the other team members if they had a problem with what was going on--everyone else was fine with it. He handed in his resignation that day.

In the news lately, the world community reels in horror with the revelations of Nazis sterilizing thousands of half Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables. So how many innocent people around the world are being unknowingly sterilized as a result of this audacious plan? And through pollen drift, this grain can contaminate food globally. It can't be contained.

It is time to understand that these global corporate elite agendas are not just about personal preference. They are evil. U.S. foreign policy is evil. To unleash something as potentially ubiquitous as GMO human-sterilizing grains is terrorism pure and simple. When our little kiddies are encouraged to get a good enough education to go work for one of these outfits, what does this say about our value system?

Let's not dance around the issue. An evil food system exists, and a righteous food system exists. We need to be patronizing and promoting the righteous one.

Joel Salatin

The Farm Blog

Connecting farmers with patrons

http://polyfaceyum.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmo-real-story.html

 

Also read:

 

Spermicidal Breakfast Cereal

GMO Corn Makes Men Sterile

A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto. More here.

Now do you want labels on your GMO foods?

Click here to take action.

ACTION ALERT: BEWARE THE FOOD POLICE!

HR 875/S425 WOULD NATIONALIZE FARMING, DESTROY ORGANICS, ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE GARDEN!

The New Administration is pushing Farm Control that will drive Organic Farms out of Business: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw

Buried in the bills are fine print that will force farmers to buy and use pesticides and to comply with severely onerous red tape (ostensibly to "protect consumers") or be driven out of business by gigantic fines.

It is "claimed" and being presented to establish a "Food Safety Administration" with in the Department of Health and Human Services to "protect" the public from food born illnesses... but as usual, nothing that happens in DC is actually the way it seems on the surface- its all smoke and mirrors- all LIES!!!

Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) deserves burial by phone call, fax, email and irate personal visits for sponsoring the slimiest piece of legislation I've seen in a very long time: HR 875 The (So Called) Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-875

This bill aleady has 31 cosponsors who most likely never read anything more than the PREAMBLE to the bill which seems reasonable enough, but as usual, the DEVIL is in the DETAILS. Peter Defazio (D-OR) is even cosponsoring this. He needs to REMOVE HIS NAME, and I think he will once he realizes whats actually in this bill. He is normally on our side against huge corporate powers like Monsanto, but in this case he's clearly making a mistake.

Whats driving this despicable P.O.S. was the recent contaminated Peanut Plant in Georgia http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,497425,00.html

As usual, Monsanto's lobbyists are up to no good, however, and they've stuck language into this puppy that needs to be yanked outa there PRONTO- and we're all going to have to do some work to make that happen!

If we don't, you can say goodbye to all that nice organic produce that you buy at your health food store, in the organics section of your supermarket, from farmers markets, and you can even expect to have the Fedstapo show up on your DOORSTEP to FINE you for growing a garden in your own YARD- THAT is how overly broad the bill language in this thing is!

Check it out: Full Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:h875:

HERE IS WHATS SPECIFICALLY WRONG AND WHAT YOU CAN DO:

This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor.  One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it.  As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying.  Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation.  Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.

I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers.  This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property siezed.   It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it.  It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. 

If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed.  That's right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course. 

DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF.

The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share. 

Post your observations and insights below. 

Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.

Pay special attention to:

Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it's entirety.
Section 103, 206 and 207- read in its entirety.

Red flags I found and I am sure that there are more:

Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the States’ power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.

Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn't actually use the word organic.

Affects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.

Affects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.

Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal.  There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.   

Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?

Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more

Section 207 requires that the State's agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the State’s power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.

There are many more but by the time I got this far in the legislation I was so alarmed that I wanted to bring someone's attention to it

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s425:

During times of Stalin’s regime, the nationalization of farming methods took place. This enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply. He used food rations to control the population.

Last word. Legislate religion, and enforce gag orders on ministers, controlling what can and can't be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely fully on the government, control the format of money (cash, plastic or digital), seeds and food.

I haven't read any of the Senate's version of the bill as I have been pouring through the House's version. Here is the link and I hope some of you can take a look and post your observations and insights below.

S 425 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s425: 

Theres also a chance that as this bill moves through Congressman Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee, he could use it as a vehicle for attacking the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 which defends our access to dietary supplements. Waxman is DSHEA's biggest opponent in Congress and he's never had more power than he has now. IAHF is especially monitoring this aspect of the bill, but the rest is very bad as it is!

Things you can do:

Contact your members at 202-224-3121 (Capital Switchboard) and ask them to oppose HR 875 and S 425. While you are at it ask them if they personally have read the legislation and what their position is? If they have not read the legislation ask them to read it and politely let them know that just because other representitives are not reading the legislation and voting on it does not mean they can do the same  

Get in touch with local farmers and food producers by attending a local farmers market and asking them how you can understand further the implications that this will have on them

Attend a local WAPF meeting, as a good start to learning about what is going on in farming and local & state initiatives .  The website is http://www.westonaprice.org/localchapters/index.html

Check out the Farmers Legal Defense Fund at http://www.ftcldf.org/index.html

Find out who sits on your State’s agriculture and farming committee and contact them with your concerns

Continue to contact your elected officials and let them know your position on legislation and why

Get active at the local and State levels as this is the quickest way to initiate change.

I will be out of my office for a week, leaving Wednesday to work with a client in California, but I sure would appreciate if you forwarded this widely! Anyone can be on the IAHF list by signing up at www.iahf.com

Donations make it possible for me to do this Health Freedom work. If you appreciate this timely heads up, please consider sending a donation to IAHF via paypal at http://www.iahf.com/index1.html or by sending a check or money order to IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd., Point Roberts WA 98281 USA

For Health Freedom, John C. Hammell, President International Advocates for Health Freedom 556 Boundary Bay Road Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA http://www.iahf.com jham@iahf.com 800-333-2553 N.America 360-945-0352 World

'Food Safety' Legislation Written by Big Agrico to Take Over Food Suppy

Will outlaw organic farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside produce stands, etc.

The "food safety" bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.  All are associated with the opposite of food safety.  What is this all about then?

In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning.  Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.

Slow Food was right - limit your food to what comes from your region and from real farmers, and slow down to cook it and linger over it with friends and family, and the world begins to change for the better.  

And as we face an unprecedented economic crisis, and it is hard to be sure what has value, one thing that always does is food.  Which is why the corporations are after absolute control over it.  But what obstacles to a complete lock on food do they face?  All the people in this country who are "banking" on organic farming and urban gardens and most of all, everyone's deepening pleasure in and increasing involvement with everything about food.

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

Those are things we not only all want, but things we are actively getting involved in, and things we very much need.  And where they are truly good, they are growing.

The international financial corporations which have wreaked havoc around the world with astounding nonsensical "solutions" that are destructive of everyone but them, are brothers to the international agribusiness giants (Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.) which are just as aggressively after their own form of "taking."  Just seeds, animals, water, land.

And freedom. 

Because human beings are by in large good and by in large incredibly resilient and clever, and left to their own devices - that is, free - they would handle this gargantuan financial stupidity the corporations brought us with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and all other globalized schemes (which they hope to eventually top off with CODEX).  How?  By being productive in real ways and locally.  And farming is the solid ground under that.  Farmers produce something of real value (something we used to take for granted), and from that base, businesses grow up.  Local markets, local food processors, local seed companies, local tool and supply companies, local stores ... and an economy based on reality and something truly good for us, too, begins to grow.

So, look again at what has been exciting us - Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands. - and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building.  And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic - and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.

And it is all those things that threaten the corporations ... which is why we now have these massive "fake food safety" bills in Congress.  Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs.  To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

And how will those who contaminate our country's food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that?  Why, by setting standards for "food safety" that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage.  Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up.  That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers.  Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have.  Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into ... a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.

Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.

And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country?  Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves. 

How it works:  Tyson helps Bill Clinton get into office.  Bill Clinton immediately and significantly lowers contamination standards for poultry as a thank you.  And it is such contaminated waste from transnational poultry factories which is now implicated as the source of bird flu. Then fortunes on made on that fear.  And then poultry industry uses the crisis they created to push out small farmers and take greater control than ever.  Their mantra?  Biodiversity not only be damned but be eliminated.  And get rid of those damn farmers who protect it while we're at it.

The bills would require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally - a fruit stand, at a farmers market -  no one could manage it.  And THAT is the point.  The whole dirty tricks point.  The whole "be in tight control of everything needed for survival because it'll be worth a fortune" point.

So, if you like farmers markets, local farmers, fresh milk, fresh eggs, vegetables stands, and freedom, let your friends know that it's all on the line right now with those "fake food safety" bills brought to us with well-planned evil and more of it to come, by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.

Slow Food reminds us of just where we need to be (and notice how much would help any local economy):

Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems;

Developing an "Ark of Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated;

Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation;

Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products);

Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada);

Promoting "taste education;"

Educating consumers about the risks of fast food;

Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms;

Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties;

Developing various political programs to preserve family farms;

Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy;

Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering;

Lobbying against the use of pesticides;

Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners; and

Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces.

But we need to stop these bills first or we are left with no money from the financial bailout and no food from the food stealout.

Send a message to Congress.  

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:

Stop HR 875, HR 814, SR 425, and soon, HR 759

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Linn Cohen-Cole is a a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

The New York Times misses a Monsanto coup over organic farming set in motion by Hillary Clinton

by Linn Cohen-Cole

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton.  She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food.  Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

Senator Clinton is deeply, historically connected to Monsanto. And her and Bill Clinton's association with Monsanto has not been good for the safety of American food and our democracy,and the two are inextricably linked.  Her long time advisor and campaign strategist was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR firms representing Monsanto (Blackwater, ExxonMobil of the Alaska spill, Union Carbide of the Bhopal disaster, the Argentinian junta ...).

The astounding name of one of the bills is so absurd and totalitarian in both its use of fear and its infinite reach, it should have been rejected outright based solely on that:

H. R. 814 "Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009."

In addition, there is HB875 and a Senate bill introduced by Sherrod Brown. The supporters of H. R. 814 were all strong supporters for president (as was Sherrod Brown).

DeLauro is married to prominent Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's chief pollster from 1991 to 1994

Bordallo supported Clinton in Guam

On November 26, 2007, DeGette announced her endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton for president, and was named national co-chair of Clinton's Health Care Policy Task Force and adviser on stem-cell research.

Nadler endorsed Clinton for president. In essence, the bills entail a hidden takeover and then forced industrialization of small farming - and that would include organic CSAs - by the industrial side.

Here is a farmer's alert to his local anti-NAIS group:

Hello friends, Have you all read federal HB814 and HB875? If not better take a look.  Seems we are looking at NAIS on steroids.

814 is bad, 875 is awful, it creates a new food safety department that seems to take some power from USDA&FDA and who knows what else?

It has language in it that appears to turn our farms into food production facilitys and allows them to decide our feed ratios and types as well as our animal health regime and whether or not and with what we can fertilize our ground, sounds worse than NAIS to me, the wording is vague and probably intentionally so. [My emphasis.]

This is the end of organic farming.

There is no frontal assault, it is done insidiously, through "entering" it and using government regulations and criminal penalties ($500,000 and 10 years in prison) to simply make it industrial.  And for the well-being of Monsanto and industrial agricultural corporations, it will require purchase of agrochemical and pharmaceuticals.

Quite simply, one government required spraying of pesticides and an organic farm, no matter how productive and safe, is finished instantly.

The shell will be "organic" but its insides will be Monsanto.

Under the outrageous threat of "agricultural contamination everywhere" and using "food safety" as a weapon against the farmers actually producing our only safe food, Monsanto has used Hillary Clinton's connections in the state of New York and elsewhere to introduce bills that are literally fascist in their implications and by definition.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

That the New York Times should be reporting the success of CSA just as these destructive bills from its own representatives are being introduced and the brainchild of its ex-Senator, is a glimpse of the extreme disconnect between urban elite and eager organic consumers, and the horrors occurring through the USDA and FDA to ensure that "organic" will be "organic" in name only, its farms and its food content thoroughly industrial.

This is similar to the underhanded move that Bill Clinton made during his administration when he introduced rBGH through an FDA headed by Monsanto and would not label it (farmers were being sued for honest labeling by Monsanto and the FDA didn't stop that). That left only organic food as a last way around unknown danger. But Bill tried to close that escape with new "organic" standards which included the dirty three: genetic engineering of plants/animals, food irradiation, and sewage sludge as fertilizer. The USDA backed down only after a public response 20 times greaterthan to anything before.

"Shortly before the end of the comment period, the nation's biotechnology leader, Monsanto, advised the USDA to back off temporarily on trying to include gene-altered products under the organic label for a three-year period and then to try again."

The plan has been transformed.  After years of suing farmers for honest labeling and trying to establish dishonest ones and pushing laws around the country to ban labeling altogether, a new approach is now being set in motion.  Rather than trying to co-opt the goodness of organic food by hiding the dangers of GMOs under an organic label or no labels, Monsanto is intending to take over all small farms including organic ones, control farmers into non-existence through sadistically inappropriate bureaucracy and regimes applied to a natural system (that is working well), through draconian penalties and fear of prison, and through forced application of industrial chemicals and drugs.

It's a better plan.  It either gets rid of the competition entirely (without confronting it directly) or it forces it to become a captive to Monsanto products.

One must give them credit for brilliance.  This is no open battle - tiger against newborn kitten - but a take over of the kitten's body by massive tapeworm.

This is whatNAISis about (utter take-over of functions and the weakening and death that will cause) and now the tapeworm is spreading out into all aspects of farming - vegetables, trees, ... everything normal is set to labeled, digitally fed into massive centralized data banks controlled by the government/Monsanto, and every thing will have to be recorded in minute detail. What seed of what variety from what company after what testing was planted on what day under which conditions on what row recorded where by GPS tracking, and received what chemicals in what amount from what company and how often and with what results and ....

This is fascism applied to farming.

Have any of you gone out to plant seeds, taking the seed packets from last year and some from this year, and put a few here and few there and home made marker to help you remember, enjoying being outside away from computers and paperwork and television and bills and all that things that produce stress? Just you and a few seeds and hope of what will happen.

That is freedom.  That is being in nature and it belongs to you, just as it did when you were little and enjoyed playing outside and getting dirty and being a normal child. That freedom and that love of nature is why farmers farm. It is hard work, it is incredibly hard work, but only they and nature control their time.  They look out after a hard winter and see the ground has thawed and there is break in the weather, know they need to spend the day planting seeds before it rains. All plans for other things must be put aside.  It's a deep companion thing between them and nature.

It is not an industrial thing. It is not a Monsanto thing.

Wonderful, real, caring hard-working farming groups around the country have been fighting for survival against NAIS - on no money, doing legal work themselves, doing documentaries themselves, working (one said) 23 hours a day for years now, while trying to run farms and raise families. You have no idea how brutal this has been for them.

These bill would turn our farmers into Monsanto controlled laborers on their own property, while mandating they purchase their products through federal law.

The industrial side is making us sick and responsible for contamination that spreads through out the food system - pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, steroids, heavy metals. But through Clinton's idea and the bills introduced by her friends, Monsanto and the rest of Big Ag (Cargill, ADM and the rest) are about to get away with the most astounding coup of American farming - using government to actually impose their sickness making industrial system on small farmers who are the ones producing the only health food we have.

This is why Vilsack, Monsanto's crony, was put in.  2009 is the date for locking things up.

They would not only be taking over the food supply but eliminating everything diverse and healthy through massive regulating of every single thing happening on farms - while they, the industrial side, is not even inspected and plays game with all labeling for themselves.  They are running the show and Monsanto is dragging down the whole economy and blocking any chance of a local, vibrant organic farming movement to exist.

As the New York Time article intimated, this is the change Obama talked about - and they are green jobs - being eliminated behind the scenes by Clinton, Vilsack and Monsanto.

A whole class of once free people are being taken over and made servants to the industrial system and even trapped sources of funds for it, controlling everything they do.

Here's what they do in all its hard work, love, wonder and ... freedom:

Here a 8 year old proudly helps to dry his new doeling that he chose to name MilkNHoney Allison. By being involved through the entire process from conception to weaning, this child might choose to stay in either livestock or farming. He gains valuable knowledge throughout the 5 month process to help him be a Goat breeder someday."

The New York Times has never written a single article on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The only story on NAIS they have written is a review of French movie by that name. And CSAs they just reported on would be fine and help lead this country out of a massive depression if all the bills out of New York and Ohio were trashed outright.

No, President Clinton, there is no "we."  Farmers know the government caused a human disaster (your "free trade" and opening India to Monsanto and the rest has been followed by 180,000 suicides by Indian farmers over the last ten years - but, oh, the profits to Monsanto). What farmers want is for government to stay out of small farming altogether.

Your words sound so contrite - admitting to a colossal blunder and talking about a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture." But Monsanto is now using those same words "environmentally responsible," and "sustainable" and in a New Yorker ad, no less, and your "we" is just on to the next massive trick.

Just leave small farmers alone.  They know how to farm.  And customers are incredibly grateful for their good food.

Those regulations are fine. They are just insanely misapplied to the safest, least centralized, least dangerous part of farming - small local farmers.  But they are, though, absolutely perfect for Monsanto and industrial agriculture, multinational corporations which NEED to be massively re-regulated and tracked every minute of every day, and particularly including who their lobbyists visit in government.

But for our small farmers who we are losing the rate of 1000 a month, get the government the hell off their farms.  Get them the hell out from under all USDA regulations that in any way at all allow their own corporately corrupted government - now backed up by Homeland Security "surge capacity" strike forces - to threaten, control, register, track, seize, trespass, slaughter, or destroy anything that is theirs.

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Remove small farming from NAIS and all federal regulations to do with contamination and food safety. Leave them to farm and simply pass tests by local INDEPENDENT labs.

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children with things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-New-York-Times-misses-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090216-971.html