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Organic Chickens Coming Home to Roost

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Earlier this summer, just as the nation was celebrating Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law going into effect on July 1, a handful of corporate-owned organic companies sold out the GMO labeling movement to get a few small protections for their own corporate profits.

They were joined in the sell-out by supposedly liberal stalwarts like Senator Al Franken and President Barack Obama. Obama, you may remember, even made it a campaign promise to promote GMO labeling.

At the time, Food Democracy Now gave a detailed analysis of exactly who was involved in this betrayal of the will of more than 90 percent of the American public. Now the fallout continues, as leading family farm and organic seed groups and top organic companies have announced their resignation from the Organic Trade Association and Just Label It for their active role in this outrageous betrayal on GMO labeling.

Just last week, Dr. Bronner’s announced its resignation from the Organic Trade Association ahead of the big organic industry event, the Natural Products Expo East, with Dr. Bronner’s CEO David Bronner denouncing the “betrayal of the consumer-led GMO labeling movement, and general drift away from the core principles that drive the organic movement.”

Food Democracy Now has announced that it’s making sure that everyone in the organic industry at Expo East knows exactly who was behind this sell-out by running mobile billboards at the industry event.

Dr. Bronner’s announcement comes on the heels of an announcement from the Organic Consumers Association that 60 leading non-profits and small organic businesses are calling on the small and mid-sized organic companies to leave the Organic Trade Association.

The corporate organic sell-outs who worked against the GMO labeling movement include Stonyfield Yogurt co-founder and Just Label It chair Gary Hirshberg, Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb, and Organic Valley lobbyist and Organic Trade Association President Missy Hughes.

Food Democracy Now is about to launch a boycott against these companies. Joining in the protest against the Organic Trade Association is the family farmer-run Organic Seed and Growers Association (OSGATA), which left the OTA in disgust earlier this summer.

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RODALE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES ORGANIC FARMERS ASSOCIATION

Rodale Institute, the world’s leading organic agriculture research organization, has launched a new membership organization for organic farmers. The new Organic Farmers Association will exist to provide a voice for organic farmers on policy issues, help organic farmers network and share information, and serve as a resource center for organic farmers.

Advocacy efforts will be led by Elizabeth Kucinich, Board Policy Chair for Rodale Institute. Kucinich has extensive policy experience in Washington, D.C., including serving as the former director of policy at the Center for Food Safety and former director of government affairs at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Elizabeth is an advisory council member of DC EFF, the world’s largest environmental film festival, and is a producer of GMO OMG and Organic Rising.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to bring organic farmers’ voices and their experience with agriculture to policymakers in Washington, D.C.,” said Kucinich. “Policymakers have not yet grasped the significance of organic agriculture for resilient, reliable, non-toxic food production, and its ability to mitigate climate change while restoring our nation’s soil health. We have an opportunity to benefit organic farmers, while positively impacting our nation’s health and mitigating our climate crisis.”

In addition to better representation for organic farmers on legislative issues, the Organic Farmers Association will provide resources for farmers such as webinars, online tools, discounts, and a subscription to Rodale Institute’s New Farm magazine, providing the latest research and news for organic farmers.

“A lot of people say they speak for farmers,” said Jeff Moyer, Executive Director, Rodale Institute. “But there are no national organizations that exist specifically for organic farmers, by organic farmers. A lot of organic farmers are still isolated in their communities. We’d like to unite the nearly 20,000 organic farms around the country to provide that voice, provide a network, and provide the resources that farmers need to be successful.”

To sign up for a membership, visit OrganicFarmersAssociation.org. There are two membership options. A “Farmer Membership,” which represents organic farmers and includes a vote on policy issues, and a “Supporter Membership” for individuals interested in supporting organic farmers. Both memberships are $100 per year. For farm members, the voting structure is simple. Each farm receives one vote on policy issues, so that large and small operations have an equal voice at the table.

The Rodale Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach. The Institute has been researching the best practices of organic agriculture and sharing findings with farmers and scientists throughout the world, advocating for policies that support farmers, and educating consumers about how going organic is the healthiest option for people and the planet.

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3.2 MILLION MOSTLY TOP PREDATORS KILLED BY THE FED IN 2015

The highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 3.2 million animals during fiscal year 2015, according to new data released by the agency. The total number of wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, beavers, foxes, eagles and other animals killed largely at the behest of the livestock industry and other agribusinesses represents a half-million-animal increase over the 2.7 million animals the agency killed in 2014.

Despite increasing calls for reform a century after the federal wildlife-killing program began in 1915, the latest kill report indicates that the program’s reckless slaughter continues, including 385 gray wolves, 68,905 coyotes (plus an unknown number of pups in 492 destroyed dens), 480 black bears, 284 mountain lions, 731 bobcats, 492 river otters (all but 83 killed “unintentionally”), 3,437 foxes, two bald eagles and 21,559 beavers. The program also killed 20,777 prairie dogs outright, plus an unknown number killed in more than 59,000 burrows that were destroyed or fumigated.

“Despite mounting public outcry and calls from Congress to reform these barbaric, outdated tactics, Wildlife Services continues its slaughter of America’s wildlife with no public oversight,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “There’s simply no scientific basis for continuing to shoot, poison and strangle millions of animals every year — a cruel practice that not only fails to effectively manage targeted wildlife but poses an ongoing threat to other animals, including pets.”

Agency insiders have revealed that the agency kills many more animals than it reports.

The data show that the Department of Agriculture boosted its killing program despite a growing public outcry and calls for reform by scientists, elected officials and nongovernmental organizations.

“The Department of Agriculture should get out of the wildlife-slaughter business,” said Robinson. “Wolves, bears and other carnivores help keep the natural balance of their ecosystems. Our government kills off the predators, such as coyotes, and then kills off their prey — like prairie dogs — in an absurd, pointless cycle of violence.”

USDA’s Wildlife Services program began in 1915 when Congress appropriated $125,000 to the Bureau of Biological Survey for “destroying wolves, coyotes, and other animals injurious to agriculture and animal husbandry” on national forests and other public lands.

By the 1920s, scientists and fur trappers were robustly criticizing the Biological Survey’s massive poisoning of wildlife, and in response in 1928 the agency officially renounced “extermination” as its goal. Nevertheless it proceeded to exterminate wolves, grizzly bears, black-footed ferrets, and other animals from most of their remaining ranges in the years to follow. The agency was blocked from completely exterminating these species through the 1973 passage of the Endangered Species Act.

In 1997, after several name changes, the deceptive name “Wildlife Services” was inaugurated in place of “Biological Survey.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

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GREENPEACE UNCOVERS INDUSTRY BEE-KILLING PESTICIDE STUDIES

Joe Sandler Clarke, writing for Greenpeace, reveals how chemical giants Bayer and Syngenta commissioned private studies that showed their neonicotinoid pesticides causes serious harm to bees.

The company research—designed to reveal the level at which their products harm bees—was obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to the U.S. environmental regulator. Publicly, the two firms have often sought to play down suggestions that their products can cause harm to honeybees.

However, the studies will cause little surprise in industry circles. Industry and scientists have long known that the products can harm bees. Instead, the research has been criticized by experts because it assumes a very narrow definition of harm to bee health and ignores wild bees, which evidence suggests are more likely to be harmed by neonicotinoids. It means the studies may substantially underestimate the impact of the two firms’ products on pollinators.

Due to commercial confidentiality rules, Greenpeace is not allowed to release the studies in full.

On its website, Syngenta states there is “no direct correlation between neonicotinoids use and poor bee health” and “the allegation that neonicotinoids-based pesticides are inherently damaging to bee colonies or populations is not true.”

In statements issued to Greenpeace last month, the firm added, “None of the studies Syngenta has undertaken or commissioned for use by regulatory agencies have shown that thiamethoxam (its neonicotinoid pesticide) damages the health of bee colonies and we stand by the integrity of our neonicotinoid product.”

The private research did not examine the impact of the product on bee colonies in “normal” conditions. However, other studies have done so.

Last month, a study by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology linked the long-term decline of wild bees in England to the use of neonicotinoids.

A major field study in Sweden last year found that wild bees were badly affected when exposed to fields treated with clothianidin (Bayer’s neonic), while honeybees proved more robust.

In a statement to Greenpeace, a Bayer spokesperson said:

“The study conducted in North Carolina is an artificial feeding study that intentionally exaggerates the exposure potential because it is designed to calculate a ‘no-effect’ concentration for clothianidin. Although the colony was artificially provided with a spiked sugar solution, the bees were allowed to forage freely in the environment, so there is less stress (which can be a contributing variable) than if they were completely confined to cages.

“This protocol was developed jointly by Bayer and the EPA several years ago and it is now being applied to other compounds. Based on these results, we believe the data support the establishment of a no-effect concentration of 20 ppb for clothianidin, which is consistent to that of other neonicotinoids.

“One of our research scientists will make a public presentation at the International Congress of Entomology meeting in Orlando, Florida, in which he will discuss the similarities of the findings of these studies, as well as the merits of the new test protocol.”

Responding to the Greenpeace story, a Syngenta spokesperson said:

“The EPA asked us to do this study and agreed with the methodology. A sucrose based mechanism was used on the basis that it was required to expose bees artificially to Thiamethoxam to determine what actual level of residue would exert a toxic effect.

“There were transient effects observed and the reported No Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) for this study was 50 ppb (parts per billion). It is accepted that residues of Thiamethoxam in pollen and nectar from seed treated crops are in the single ppb level. So this reported NOAEL of 50 ppb indicates that honeybee colonies are at low risk from exposure to Thiamethoxam in pollen and nectar of seed treated crops.

“This research is already in the process of being published in a forthcoming journal and is clearly already publicly available through the Freedom of Information process in the United States.”

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TOWN NEAR GMO PLANTINGS SUFFERS BIRTH DEFECTS, CANCERS

The village of Avia Terai in Argentina is surrounded by GMO soy crops and Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is sprayed freely.

Here, children are born with birth defects and degenerative diseases of unknown origin. One little girl has large brownish-black spots all over her face and body—marks she’s had since birth. Another is slowly wasting away from an undiagnosed degenerative disease thought to be genetic, aggravated by exposure to herbicides. Many children are deformed in one way or another. Many elders are dying from cancer.

On October 15, Maria Liz Robledo, one of Monsanto’s victims in Argentina, and Damian Verzenassi, a public health doctor in Argentina, will tell the world how Argentinians have suffered from Monsanto’s Roundup. They are among the witnesses and experts who will testify before a panel of international judges at the International Monsanto Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

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