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How much do crop yields depend on bees? 

So much so that increasing bee populations could increase the production of some 2 billion smallholder farmers worldwide, and help ensure the food security and nutrition of the world’s growing population. 

And it wouldn’t cost the farmers anything, according to a recent field study conducted by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), and published in Science magazine.

From the FAO website:

“Our research shows that improving pollinator density and diversity – in other words, making sure that more and more different types of bees and insects are coming to your plants – has direct impact on crop yields,” said Barbara Gemmill-Herren, one of the FAO authors of the report. “And that’s good for the environment and for food security,” she said, adding that it is beneficial to actively preserve and build habitats in and around farms for bees, birds and insects to live year-round. 

The key takeaway from the study? “Bees provide a real service and should be taken into account when we plan food security interventions. And the best part is: their service is free.”

Learn more 

Can farmers make more money by growing food using regenerative, or agroecological, practices?

Yes, say the innovators behind the Agricology, a UK-based website launched last November, to help farmers transition away from conventional farming practices. Agricology, an online resource, translates scientific research into practical farming advice to help farmers increase food production while maintaining biodiversity.

So it’s in the UK. And it’s designed for farmers. Why should consumers care?

Because in a world where the population is growing, biodiversity is shrinking, modern farming models are polluting the environment and producing pesticide-contaminated nutrient-poor food, and global warming threatens us with extinction, consumers—the people who choose which food to buy and which to reject—hold if not all, at least most of the cards when it comes to reversing these trends.

Watch the video 

“Where farming is today is that farmers still buy their seed from one company, their chemicals from another, their fertilizers from another. They get their agronomic advice from someone else,” he said. “What farmers want and need is for all of those inputs to be integrated.” – Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer

According to Wired magazine reporter, Sarah Zhang, Monsanto’s chief technology officer is all about “communicating” with the public because, well, Monsanto just hasn’t done a good enough job of singing the praises of its poisons.

It’s the same tune Hillary Clinton sang last year when she delivered a (paid) speech to the annual gathering of Gene Giants in San Diego.

And it’s what Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), author of the latest version of the Senate DARK Act, was thinking when he included language requiring the taxpayer funded FDA and USDA to promote the so-called “benefits” of biotechnology on food labels.

But Fraley’s telling quote above reveals the sad truth about Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Bullies. They don’t want farmers who think for themselves, who manage their own farms, who incorporate farming techniques that regenerate the soil, cool the planet and produce nutrient-dense food.

No, Monsanto wants farmers whose livelihoods are directly tied to the sale of GMO seeds, cancer-causing Roundup and soil-depleting, water-polluting chemical fertilizers. To keep that gravy train rolling, they need consumers who are kept in the dark about today’s disastrous train wreck of a food and farming system.

It will take all of us, working together, to stop the Robb Fraleys of the world from polluting everything, including consumers’ minds. We have to act fast. Because we’re all riding on this train.

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)

When Gabriela Raquel Rios, representing the National Farmworker Ministry, sat down with Danny Weeden, CEO of Sakuma Brother Farms, her goal was simple: deliver 750 postcards in support of Sakuma’s farmworkers, organized as Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ). 

Farm work is some of the most dangerous work there is. Workers face long hours, low wages, and often outright abuse and harassment from supervisors. If they work on conventional farms, they’re routinely exposed to a bath of toxic pesticides.

Farmworkers at Sakuma Brothers have been asking for years for the chance to sit down with managers to negotiate a fair contract that mitigates some of the stress, danger, and low pay of their jobs. But not only has Sakuma Brother Farm’s Danny Weeden refused to meet with farmworkers, he’s dismissed their grievances and concerns. 

He wouldn’t even accept the postcards Rios tried to deliver.
  
Workers at Sakuma have waited far too long already for Sakuma Brothers to listen to them. They need a fair contract. Now.
 
TAKE ACTION: Tell Sakuma Brothers Farm: Put It in Writing! Farmworkers Need a Fair Contract! 

Last week, the Senate defeated S. 2609—or what we call the DARK Act, the bill that would Deny Americans our Right to Know about GMOs.

We hope you celebrated last week. Because this week, we have to get back to work. With a vengeance.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) didn’t have the votes on March 16 to pass a bill to preempt Vermont’s labeling law.  But that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of Roberts, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. 

Here’s why. After the vote on the DARK Act failed last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flipped his vote from yes to no. It’s not that McConnell had a sudden change of heart. Hardly. He just used a procedural maneuver in order to allow the Senate to bring back an amended version of the DARK Act for another vote.

So what’s next? When Congress returns on April 4, after a two-week recess, we expect the pro-GMO, Monsanto-funded Democrats in the Senate, led by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), to keep working on a compromise bill. Stabenow has said all along that she wants a federal labeling bill that preempts Vermont. Can she come up with a compromise bill that accomplishes preemption, but is acceptable enough to win over a few more Senators? Enough to get the bill passed in the Senate? And turn consumers into April Fools?

TAKE ACTION: Call Sen. Debbie Stabenow and ask her to protect Vermont’s GMO Labeling Law

Dial 888-897-0174 to tell your Senators to vote against any compromise that would block or delay Vermont’s bill from taking effect.

Help or organize an April Fool’s Day action at the home office of your Senator. Email campaigns (at) organicconsumers.org if you can help!

The world’s largest food corporations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars (some of it illegally) to avoid being required to label the genetically engineered ingredients in their products.

But with the July 1 deadline for complying with Vermont’s GMO labeling law on the horizon, a handful of the largest multinational food corporations have announced they will now label GMOs—not solely because they will be forced to, but because as General Mills claims, they believe “you should know what’s in your food and how we make ours.”

Have consumers won the GMO labeling battle? Have these food companies that so fiercely fought to keep labels off their products really split with the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the multi-billion-dollar lobbying group that is still trying to overturn Vermont’s law in the courts, and preempt it in Congress?

Or is there something more to these recent announcements than just the need to comply with Vermont’s law? As in, a strategy to lull consumers into complacency, while at the same time forcing Congress to give food companies what they’ve wanted all along—a free pass on labeling?

Read the essay