Monsanto has never really publicly acknowledged OCA's Millions Against Monsanto Campaign before. From their perspective, it probably makes more sense to ignore our criticisms and hope we'll go away while they publicly position genetic engineering as the norm in agriculture. However, our whole movement is getting too big to ignore. The growth of organics, the increasing public concern about health, food safety, the ongoing work by OCA and many other organizations to educate about the benefits of an organic, localized food system and the failures and dangers of GE crops; all are approaching critical mass. More people care about food and the food system than ever before, and more and more people are becoming educated about Monsanto's role in the current morass of genetically engineered industrial farming that is contributing to the health and environmental crises we all face.

Monsanto just acknowledged this growing awareness and sentiment against genetic engineering in an article published on May 19th in Brownfield Ag News for America concerning the Food Dump held in Chicago as part of OCA's recent Millions Against Monsanto Campaign.

Monsanto's Mimi Ricketts tells Brownfield this is clearly a swipe at biotech.

Actually Monsanto, it's a swipe at YOU. You are the face of biotech.

The article goes on to confuse and misinform, while insinuating that OCA and GE activists are the ones who are actually misinformed.

The political director of the Organic Consumers Association and other activists claim they were arrested at a Chicago Whole Foods Market during their protest of unlabeled Genetically Modified foods Wednesday.

"Claim?" We have the citations to prove it.

The association's campaign "Millions Against Monsanto" involved dumping what the group said were GMO foods…

Right, because they're not labeled, so…that's the whole point.

A Whole Foods spokesperson tells the Chicagoist.com that the company had nothing to do with the arrests and that they welcome more awareness about GMOs. Whole Foods founded the "Non-GMO Product Verified" program in 2009. Although most of their suppliers are organic, they encourage others that are not to also go through the program. 

Actually, most of Whole Foods Market's suppliers are not organic. Only 1/3 of the products in their stores are certified organic.

"You know, the organizers of these rallies, they're working hard to confuse and misinform consumers that there's something wrong with these products," says Ricketts.

OCA does believe that there is something wrong with GMOs. As the comments on this article ask (and we urge you all to read the article in full, and comment): If there is no difference between GMOs and non-GMOs then 1) why are GMOs patented? and 2) why aren't GMOs labeled?

They did get one thing right.  We are working hard. We're working DAMN HARD to educate the public about Monsanto's efforts to confuse and misinform consumers. We're not going to stop. And there are thousands, maybe even MILLIONS of us!

www.MillionsAgainstMonsanto.org