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Scientific American—Another Monsanto Bedfellow
European Parliament Votes to Ban Most Uses of Glyphosate
How the Government Decides What You Eat
Chemical Contents in Your Soap and Shampoo
Biofuels, Plastics and Drugs: Is This the Future of Our Farms?
What the Candidates Are Saying about Agriculture
Vermont Attorney General Seeks Company GMO Crops Research, ‘Natural’ Label
Like they say, it doesn’t matter what you “have” in life, if you don’t have your health. And what you eat, drink and breathe plays a big role in staying healthy.
We’re big believers in the relationship between soil health and nutrient-dense foods, between pesticide-free, chemical-free, GMO-free organic regenerative farming and the health of our entire ecosystem, and everyone who inhabits it. That’s why OCA’s Ronnie Cummins is participating in two upcoming online education summits designed for consumers looking for the latest information on food and health.
The Food Revolution Summit (April 30 – May 8): Features interviews with 25 of the world’s top experts, scientists and celebrities in the food, natural health and environmental movements. The summit includes interviews with Ronnie, Vandana Shiva and Gene Bauer who will talk about “Eating for a Healthy World—How Your Food Choices Affect the Future of Life on Earth.” (Friday, May 6, at 9 p.m. PDT).
Special bonus when you sign up for the Food Revolution Summit: The Real Food Action Guide (free and downloadable). This online guide reveals medical breakthroughs the food industry hopes you never discover, and gives you the truth about GMOs and how to protect your family.
Find out how to register for the Food Revolution Summit, listen live, or how to get access to all of the interviews so you can listen to them later, on your own schedule here.
Natural Cancer Prevention Summit (May 16 – 23): Ronnie helps kick off this summit on May 16, with his talk on “How Organic Practices Prevent Cancer.”
The Natural Cancer Prevention Summit features a long list of experts, including: Dr. Michael Murray, “The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine;” Bruce Lipton, “The Biology of Belief;” Kelly Turner, “Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds;” and Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo.
Register here for the Natural Cancer Prevention Summit. Or purchase all of the sessions here.
What havoc is global warming wreaking on organic farmers around the world? What kind of future do these farmers envision?
Three farmers—Julie from Uganda, Goodson from Zambia and Francisco from Chile—speak out about the role of agriculture in climate, in an Earth Day video produced by IFOAM Organics International. Jon, from the Asian Farmers Association, shares his dream of a “farming culture” in a video produced by Regeneration International, a project of OCA.
IFOAM and Regeneration International brought delegations of international farmers to the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris (December 2015). These people, whose livelihoods are tied to a healthy ecosystem, explained to negotiators why organic agriculture matters, and how regenerative farming practices can help them not only survive global warming, but reverse it.
The Paris climate talks ended with 195 countries committing to a plan to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C, and to finding ways to keep it under 1.5°C. Included in the conversations this time around was a formal plan, France’s 4 per 1000 Initiative, to include organic regenerative agriculture and land-use practices as a means of reversing global warming. On April 22, Earth Day, about 100 countries will attend a signing ceremony at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Watch the Regeneration International video
How climate change is turning farmers in Senegal into refugees
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall
Tomorrow marks the 46th consecutive year that the world has celebrated Earth Day. Is the Earth any better off than it was 46 years ago? Are we making a difference? Are we having a positive, regenerative impact on the world around us?
We have to believe we are. We have to believe that the choices we make—the food we purchase, the farmers we support, the clothes we buy—can truly make a difference. Or we wouldn’t go on trying.
The struggle to overcome corporate power, which let’s face it, is at the root of the damage humans inflict on our own ecosystem, isn’t an easy one, or even a linear one. We win some, we lose some.
But we had to smile this week when we read this comment (in Politico) from Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. She was, as per usual, railing against Vermont’s mandatory GMO labeling law, arguing that Congress must act to prevent the law from taking effect. Otherwise, farmers will lose access to biotechnology.
“We face a paradigm shift in the very nature of American agriculture,” Bailey said.
Yes, we do. Thank goodness.
Monsanto’s sales are down. Acres of GMO crops being planted are down. European countries are banning GMOs and the toxic chemicals used to grow them.
The shift is happening. To a regenerative food and farming system that heals the Earth and everything on it. Because you are making a difference.
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)
The fast food industry has turned out to be a health and environmental disaster. But how much thought have you given lately to the “fast fashion” industry?
April 24 marks the third anniversary of the worst ever industrial accident to hit the garment industry. The 2013 disaster that struck the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh killed 1,134 workers. These workers were in that factory because, like most of us, they need to work to earn enough money to feed their families.
To make the living that eventually killed them, they were making clothes mostly for consumers in wealthier countries, like the U.S.
Because the apparel sector is so labor-intensive, and because globalization is here to stay, apparel production in the U.S. has dropped by about 92 percent since the 1960s. That means that in the 1960s, the U.S. was making 95 percent of its clothing. That number has plummeted to just 3 percent today.
Today, the U.S. outsources 97 percent of its clothing production to countries around the world where labor is cheap. And worker protections are minimal or non-existent. What we’ve got now is a race to the bottom for workers around the world.
What can you do to demand Fair Fashion, instead of supporting Fast Fashion? For starters, get more educated. Then pledge to purchase your clothing with intention.
It started with a theatrical performance.
Actress Kaiulani Lee kicked off the Beyond Pesticides 34th National Pesticide Forum this weekend in Portland, Maine. Lee’s keynote performance, “A Sense of Wonder,” brought Rachel Carson to life for all who attended the conference. Using Carson’s own words, Lee gave voice to the struggles Carson faced. The backlash she endured from the chemical industry. The personal sacrifices she made.
It was a lesson in where we came from and where we are today.
If Carson’s struggle in the 1950s and 1960s sounded all too familiar, it’s because we are fighting the same circular battle with today’s chemical industry and agribusiness giants—one product at a time, with a new, often worse one always just around the corner.
This year’s Beyond Pesticides forum had something for everyone. Scientists, lawyers, lawmakers, farmers, journalists and activists came together to share notes on the state of the movement.
And they all agreed—in the Regeneration Movement, we have a pathway to finish what Rachel Carson started.
Everybody loves a Comeback Kid—unless that “kid” is the DARK Act.
In March, the Senate voted down the DARK Act, the bill that would Deny Americans our Right to Know about GMOs.
Since then, Monsanto and its front groups, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) have been using their power, influence and, most of all, money to ram some version of the DARK Act through Congress before Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law takes effect on July 1.
Reliable sources say that the DARK Act will soon be up for another vote.
Last time, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) didn’t have the votes to pass his bill to take away states’ rights to label GMOs. Many of those who voted against the bill were pro-GMO Senators who take campaign contributions (and their talking points) from companies like Monsanto. But realizing they would take a lot of heat from their constituents, they voted no in the hope that a more palatable “compromise” bill might come along.
The Senators who voted against the DARK Act last time could easily flip their votes to support a “compromise” (capitulation) to block Vermont’s law and replace it with a weak federal standard, because of—what else?—pressure from the big corporations who profit from toxic pesticides and GMO foods.
TAKE ACTION: Stop the DARK Act Comeback! Tell your Senators: 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.
As conscious consumers, we look to labels to help us make choices that are good for us, good for the environment, good for animals and good for the people who work to bring us good food.
Unfortunately, as we know from the controversy that has for so long swirled around the word “natural” on labels, without clear standards, and a plan for enforcing those standards, labels can be meaningless at best, misleading at worst.
Nowhere has that been more evident than in the dairy industry. As consumer demand soars for milk and other dairy products from animals raised on grass (instead of GMO corn, soy and cottonseed), consumers are looking for clarity.
Take heart—clarity is coming.
The American Grassfed Association (AGA) is working on a new industry-wide grass-fed dairy standard, the certifier hopes to roll out soon. AGA is working with producers and with others in the industry, including OCA, Mercola.com and the Savory Institute, to develop a label that takes into account:
• Animal health and nutrition
• Transparency of practices and claims
• Holistic land and soil management
• Support and validation for producers
• Building a certified organic standard while providing a bridge with non-organic grass-fed claims
Now that consumers know they’ve been duped by the “low-fat milk” scam, and that dairy products from animals raised on grass provide superior nutrition, the new AGA label for grass-fed dairy products can’t come soon enough. (And don’t even get us started on how industrial degenerative dairy “factory farms” pollute the environment and torture the animals).