Katherine's Blog
Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Giants promised that GMO foods would reduce pesticide use, increase the nutritional content of food, boost farmers’ profits and feed the world by increasing yields.
Instead, they turned glyphosate into one of the most widely and recklessly used herbicides in history—and destroyed the natural biodiversity so critical for a resilient ecosystem.
Now, we’re fighting back . . . with a plan for regeneration.
Companies like Monsanto and Cargill have spent the last couple decades trying to convince you that GMO crops and foods are the only way to “feed the world.”
But industrial ag’s wild experiment—using toxic chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds and factory farms—has proven to be a disaster . . . for our soil and water, for farmers, or farm animals and for our public health.
It seems forever that we’ve been trying to get Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller off the market, and out of our food.
It’s a battle that’s had more than its share of highs and lows.
Where are we today? Fighting a new company—Bayer now owns Monsanto. And watching the courts go ‘round and ‘round, as they start then stop trials, order, then reduce (and now, potentially, reverse) judgments against a company facing nearly 43,000 lawsuits.
As Bayer digs in its heels, insisting that Roundup is “safe,” and as our regulatory agencies echo those false claims, the company finds itself fighting back in the courts, while simultaneously hinting at a settlement that could include taking Roundup off retail store shelves (but not off U.S. farms).
It’s enough to make your head spin.
About a year ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made it official: Consumers can no longer buy paint removers containing methylene chloride, a chemical linked to cancer, cognitive impairment and other health issues. (In a controversial move, the agency stopped short of banning the chemical for commercial/industrial use).
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, in a statement issued November 22, 2019, said the “EPA’s action keeps paint and coating removers that contain the chemical methylene chloride out of consumers’ hands” in a “step that will provide important public health protections for consumers.”
Methylene chloride must be pretty bad for the EPA to ban it. After all, the agency refuses to ban chlorpyrifos, a known neurotoxin especially harmful to children, and glyphosate, the chemical in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller deemed a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization.
So how is it that Walmart and Amazon won't sell you any paint remover containing methylene chloride. But both retailers will sell you decaffeinated coffee that tests positive for methylene chloride?
Ben & Jerry’s will no longer state on its packaging that the milk and cream used in its ice cream comes from “happy cows.”
That’s (a little) good news for consumers who have been misled for years into thinking that all of the milk and cream in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes from dairy farms where cows contentedly frolic outdoors. It doesn’t. In fact, Ben & Jerry's uses milk from conventional, industrial factory farm-style farms.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream packaging will continue to use the brand’s cartoon image of a cow—depicted outdoors, on a green pasture, under a big blue sky. According to the lawyers representing Ben & Jerry’s parent company, Unilever, the cows “did not look happy to begin with.”
We’ll let you be the judge of whether or not Ben & Jerry’s cartoon cows look “happy.” But to be clear—no matter how much fun the media is having with this happy cow narrative—Ben & Jerry’s deceptive marketing tactics are serious business.
Dirt matters.
So says a growing body of scientific evidence pointing to the link between healthy soil, healthy humans and a healthy ecosystem.
According to a recent article in Force of Nature:
The complexity of the soil microbiome, and the way it affects the health of all other creatures in the ecosystem and the food chain, is simply stunning.
The authors of the article argue that though “the health of most of the planet’s soil is currently in dire straits,” there’s an obvious solution:
Only by changing our agricultural system, by reverting to a system in which all organisms in an ecosystem—a diversity of plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms—are recognized as crucial to the survival of the ecosystem, can we ensure that our soil, crops, animals, and even our digestive health, will thrive.
It’s been more than a year since we sued Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s for misrepresenting its ice cream brand as “humanely sourced” and “environmentally responsible.”
The lawsuit followed our announcement—more than two years ago—that many popular Ben & Jerry’s flavors tested positive for residues of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.
What’s happened since? Through our attorneys, we’ve continued to push for Ben & Jerry’s to stop misleading consumers.
Two important articles about pesticides, food and health were published this week.
One highlights the insanity of allowing the unleashing of billions of pounds of glyphosate into our environment and food systems every year.
The other raises this question: Who’s the real Public Enemy No. 1?
Is it Monsanto (now owned by Bayer)?
Or is it the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) which defends the use of Roundup weedkiller and other toxic chemicals on our food?
October 16 was World Food Day. So we thought it fitting to remind consumers why it’s critical to boycott industrially produced meat, and why we should never give up the battle to end factory farming, once and for all.
This week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue threw small and mid-sized independent family farmers under the bus. Perdue and his U.S. Department of Agriculture want to support Big Ag, Big Food, and Big Farms, not Farmers like Phillip and Dorathy Barker who farmed for 40 years in North Carolina.
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