“New models are emerging today . . . from the longing in many hearts, the genius of many minds, the effort of many hands to build what we know instinctively that we need.” – Marjorie Kelly, “Owning our Future.”
Last week, the USDA released its final rules for GMO labeling. As predicted, the federal law is full of loopholes. So full of them, that the law can easily be summed up in two words: a joke.
With your help, OCA fought long and hard for your right to know if your food contains genetically modified ingredients.
But even under Obama, who campaigned on the promise of your “right to know” about GMOs, federal lawmakers sided with Monsanto.
Betrayed by the politicians elected to represent us, we stepped up our education campaign. We ratcheted up the pressure on corporations, using boycotts and lawsuits.
We may not have won the GMO labeling battle—which was always a means to a bigger end. But thanks to you, we are winning the war against Monsanto and Big Food.
Now, with a roster of newly elected members of Congress who understand that we must connect the dots between food, farming, environmental, climate and economic justice policies, we’re standing on the brink of an unprecedented opportunity to transform our food and farming system.
We need your help to make the most of this opportunity.
How do we know we’re winning the war against Monsanto and Big Food?
Junk food sales are down. Local citizens are rising up against factory farms.
Monsanto lost the biggest lawsuit it’s ever faced, when a jury unanimously decided that Roundup weedkiller caused Dewayne Johnson’s cancer. The company still faces more than 9,000 lawsuits by other cancer victims.
Meanwhile, Monsanto’s new parent company, Bayer, is struggling under the weight of plummeting stock prices.
At least 13 countries, including France and Germany, are moving to ban glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
In the U.S., while the EPA drags its feet, cities from Sonoma, California, to Bethesda, Maryland, are weighing their own bans on glyphosate.
Progress may still be too slow, but make no mistake: An educated citizenry is demanding—and getting—change.
But perhaps the best news to come along in awhile is something called the Green New Deal.
We often hear from our supporters that we shouldn’t mix food with politics. But if the GMO movement taught us anything, it’s that policymakers—especially those who line their campaign coffers with donations from Monsanto and Big Food—wield tremendous power over consumer rights when it comes to food (and the environment).
The authors and supporters of the Green New Deal understand this. They also understand that food and farming policy, which currently favors industrial factory farms, is directly related to poor health, a polluted environment, declining communities, and the climate crisis.
Newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently told Bon Appétit she sees food at the center of many pressing issues, from ethics to climate. She told the magazine:
“The food industry is the nexus of almost all of the major forces in our politics today. It’s super closely linked with climate change and ethics. It’s the nexus of minimum wage fights, of immigration law, of criminal justice reform, of health care debates, of education. You’d be hard-pressed to find a political issue that doesn’t have food implications.”
Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, Democratic Socialist, Libertarian, or just plain apolitical, if you care about food, health or the environment, you should be encouraged by Ocasio-Cortez’s statement. And you should get behind the Green New Deal.
We are encouraged. And we are mobilizing.
We believe 2019 has the potential to be a great year for the food movement—but only if we fight for it. Only if we pressure lawmakers, as never before, for transformational, not incremental, change.
If we want to transform our predominantly degenerative food and farming system to a regenerative one, we’re going to need drastically better food and farming policies.
We’re going to need the “genius of many minds, the efforts of many hands.”
We’re going to need you.
Please consider a generous donation to our year-end fundraising campaign. Make your donation to OCA between now and December 31, and Mercola.com’s charitable foundation will match your gift. You can donate online, or by phone or mail, details here.