Melinda's Blog
A local Minnesota dairy farm is locked in a costly legal battle with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) over its right to sell raw milk and other dairy products directly to consumers.
Since 2013, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) has been threatening to shut down Lake View Natural Dairy farm, unless Berglund agrees to let the state inspect his farm. But Berglund says that under the state constitution, the farm can sell its products directly to consumers who come to the farm, without the threat of state inspection and regulation.
On October 29 (2016), the New York Times ran a piece on how the biotech industry has failed to deliver on its promises for GMO crops. The article followed less than a month after the biotech industry asked congressional leaders for $3 million in taxpayer-provided funding to “educate” the public about biotechnology and agricultural production.
Congress should turn down this request for two reasons. First, the biotech and food industries should spend their own money to market their products.
Second, Congress shouldn’t use taxpayer money to promote what scientists and international organizations have said for years, and the latest investigation by the Times reveals, is a technology that not only doesn’t live up it its hype, but is counterproductive to resolving the critical issues of global food sovereignty and global warming.
GMOs have been on the market for more than 20 years. Yet the number of hungry people in the U.S. is on the rise. Congress should allocate money to support the type of agriculture we know will lead to food security, at home and abroad, not to what has already proven a failure.
OCA and our allies at Beyond Pesticides sued the maker of Sue Bee and Aunt Sue’s honey brands for labeling their products “Pure” and “100% Pure” when in fact those products test positive for glyphosate, the active (and ubiquitous) ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
We know what you’re thinking. Honey comes from bees, and beekeepers don’t spray their hives with Roundup—so how did glyphosate end up in honey?
As organic farmers have been alleging for years, glyphosate doesn’t just land where it’s sprayed, end of story. It drifts—into places where it’s not wanted. Including maybe, nearby properties owned by beekeepers?
We sympathize with the beekeepers. We also encourage them to join with consumers in pressuring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get busy and ban this carcinogenic endocrine-disrupting chemical. Now.
It’s hard to know which is worse. The corporations that profit from poisoning your food and water. Or the politicians who will happily sell you down the river for a few campaign contributions.
Today, our “leaders” in the U.S. Senate proudly announced that they’ve “reached a deal” on a federal GMO labeling bill.
No matter how they spin it—and they will spin it—this “compromise” is nothing more than a handout to Monsanto, an industry-brokered deal intended to legally sanction the right of corporations to deceive you, the consumer.
Today, the U.S. Senate unveiled a bill that, if passed, will overturn Vermont’s mandatory GMO labeling law, and replace it with an anti-consumer bill that allows food corporations to hide GMOs behind QR barcodes and toll-free phone numbers—and gives them another two years before they even have to pretend they are labeling.
Now, more than ever, we need your help to raise $200,000 by midnight June 30. Thank you for bringing us this far--let's fight to the end.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall inside the offices of the top lobbyists for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
So close to the July 1 deadline for complying with Vermont’s GMO labeling law, and still no court ruling to overturn Vermont’s law. Still no federal legislation to preempt Vermont’s law.
The theme at this year’s National Future Farmers of America (FFA) Convention and EXPO in Louisville, Ky., was #AmplifyFFA. Amidst the sea of flashy corporate displays complete with gimmicks, games and giveaways to attract young FFA students, I had to wonder what message, exactly, is FFA trying to amplify at the National Convention and EXPO?
At the convention, I spoke briefly with a Bayer CropScience employee, who assured me that I don’t need to worry about the impact of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides on our pollinator populations because Bayer has some “really intelligent people working on the problem.”
A Monsanto employee let me know, in no uncertain terms, that the Biotech Giant’s “America’s Farmers” community outreach programs are building “stronger rural communities."
But the biggest underlying message at this year’s conference was actually a question. “How will we feed 9 billion people?”
Bayer, Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta and Food, Inc. were quick to offer their solution: GMO seeds, crop protection (pesticides), and other technological solutions. Not on their list? Organic and regenerative farming methods—methods the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development say are the only way to not only feed the world, but also solve the global warming crisis.
Need a great, one-stop resource loaded with the evidence you need to counter the myths and misinformation about GMOs? Here it is!
There are plenty of reasons to boycott factory farms, including the top two: your health and animal welfare. But the big-picture reason is this. The only way to feed the world and restore climate stability is to restore efficiency to our food system.
And the only way to do that is to boycott foods produced from animals raised on factory farms. That can be challenging given how dominant factory farming has become. But its possible, here's how.
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