Category Archives: monsanto

Farm bill 2012

by

Environmental Working Group’s take on Farm Bill 2012. (hat tip to organic consumers)

Instead, legislators created an expensive new entitlement program (called “shallow loss”) that guarantees nearly 90 percent of the income of farm businesses already enjoying record profits. It also leaves untouched a bloated $9-billion-a-year crop insurance program that pays about 60 percent of farmers’ crop insurance premiums, no matter how large the farm, and sends billions to crop insurance companies and their agents.

Most of the benefits of these proposed programs would flow to the big five commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice and wheat) that provide feed for livestock, raw material for processed food and corn ethanol fuel for our cars. Not only would these proposals be highly inequitable and wasteful, but the new revenue guarantees, combined with unlimited insurance subsidies and high crop prices, will create powerful new incentives for growers to plow up fragile wetlands and grasslands and erase many of farming’s recent environmental gains.

 

I like that it at least adds monies for food stamp recipients to purchase locally grown food at farmer’s markets.  Great idea.  I actually made the suggestion to our housing authority folks to help us get some land to plant our own vegetables to raise organically.  *crickets*

 

Link to Craig Cox, of Environmental Working Group’s statement on it here.

Promoting food exports

by

I was listening to the radio over the weekend, with agriculture reports,  and an employee of the USDA was enthusiastic about the increase of sales of food overseas.

They’re pouring $$$ into it-  $234 million in 2007.   Two hundred thirty-four million to promote it.

Link here:  http://westernfarmpress.com/usda-grants-234-million-promote-us-food-and-agriculture-products-overseas

Another link here: http://www.agri-pulse.com/uploaded/Jan2610H2.pdf

The same amount–$234 million was allocated in 2010.

This bothers me because of Tom Vilsack’s connections to Monsanto.  It also bothers me because of the tone of the radio program–

They were saying that exports of U.S. food were expected to continue to rise through 2020.  The biggest reason cited was the growth of the middle class in China, India, and Russia.

It popped into my head that their middle classes were swelling while ours was shrinking into oblivion.  This left me with a feeling of dread of empty pantries here in the U.S. because our folks are no longer able to afford food, while ships sail across the ocean to folks who could pay $$.  Not a pretty thought…

 

The smiley face of Monsanto

by

I was listening to our local radio station over the weekend, and heard this radio ad of “America’s Farmers”.  My ears immediately perked up and I listened for the reason behind the ad…political? PR? Raising awareness?

I found it at the end of the ad, when they quietly disclosed it was brought to you by….Monsanto.  Um-hmmm…

Here’s the website:  http://www. americasfarmers .com/  I’m not linking to it for obvious reasons.  I’ve made spaces in the addy, so you’ll have to close them up to look it up in your browser.

The website is just *this close* to equating farming with patriotism…

I clicked on the “Hear their stories’ link, and to the right is a paragraph with the sentence “They get up everyday just to ensure we have food on the table and clothes on our backs. and they do it without being asked.”  They do it because they get PAID for their work.  They do it so they can put food on the table and clothes on their own families’ backs.  They do it without being asked?  WTH does that mean, really?

I clicked on the “Meet the Families” link.  The first family are the Boyds:  Will and Wendy, and their children Wilson, Weston, Waylon, and Wenslie….(I already don’t like them because of being cutesy while naming their kids.)  Let’s see…they’ve had the farm for five generations…that would put them back in the times of slavery… and the farm is in Georgia….hmmmm….and they are politicians with being a County Commissioner, along with being deep in the Farm Bureau, which is no longer representative of the farmers, but a part of the political machinery….kind of like the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA–or Bossy Indian Around).  So…yeah, don’t see a lot of free thinking here who would question Monsanto or their motives.

The rest of the families basically all say the same thing–Farming is not a job, but a way of life.  Yep.  Anyone around here (Indiana being a big corn producing state) knows somebody who’s a farmer and how farming IS a way of life. What they don’t understand is how they are destroying that very life by supporting an organization that couldn’t care less about messing with nature.

Four years ago, I worked on an organic farm for one summer, and if my adrenals didn’t start crashing, I would have loved to have gone back and worked on another farm the next summer.  It’s great being outdoors tending to the plants.  No one is around–just you and the quiet….and the birds perched nearby singing or the occasional grasshopper or flutterby’s that happen in your path.  Watching clouds form and wondering how long you can push it until you need to run for cover…being caught in a rainstorm… or at lunch time, sitting by the “wild” pond (i.e., it’s not been made “pretty” by landscapers…nature “scaped” it).

Farm families know their survival depends on the family working together.  I fail to see how Monsanto ties into that.  If anything it’s the opposite—  Ask Percy Schmeiser, or any farm family that has been sued by Monsanto. What Monsanto means to say…is that they support chemical farmers, but sue organic farmers…

~~~~~~

organicconsumers.org has this up–more legal tactics by Monsanto.  Their legislators need backbone transplants….

More here on the changes in tadpoles after exposure to RoundUp.

Here’s another link from organic consumers about an organic farmer and their trials.  It sounds like a good book.  From the little tidbits mentioned in the article, she “gets it”–that all things are connected–the earth, the animals, etc.

 

Death by Delay…

by

…or, would you like some neurological and heart disease in your formula, baby?

And the question begs to be asked:  Why are they putting flame retardants in children’s clothing when they have been associated with cancer, and other serious health affects?  Killing them inch by inch…

(Makes me glad that I sewed my kids’ pajamas…one less thing for them to be exposed to)

Even though Michelle Obama will promote organic food…well, organic food is great, but if you’re sleeping in chemicals every night for eight hours or so, it kinda negates the good of eating organic food.

Organic consumers.org has this up on the ever-increasing growth of Walmart and Michelle Obama.

And then there’s this.

So…yeah…it’s not hard to see why the Obama Administration hasn’t moved forward.

Whatever happened to looking forward, not backward? (just a little snarky)

Go for the kiddies…

by

…when your efforts fail to brainwash the adults. (hat tip to organicconsumers.org)  Good Grief.  The lies and misrepresentations throughout this piece of work are mindboggling–page 8, for instance, actually states that biotech is helping the environment, while completely ignoring the genetic drift between organic corn and GM corn, (and other crops) and that Monsanto deliberately engineered plants to accept even larger quantities of RoundUp.  Even more of a concern is the “unknown proteins” and their effects not only on animal health, but human health.