Category Archives: Agribusiness

Agribusiness, Agriculture, GMO, monsanto, News, Seeds

Big Ag GAG: 29 states quietly pass “preemptive seed laws” that prevent debate and local government autonomy over genetically engineered crops – another attack on democratic debate

December 1, 2017 Pam Vernon

Another attack on free speech and democratic debate says Mike Adams, NaturalNews. This is serious folks. We have GE spuds approved here now (the growing of) and how much did we hear about that pre approval? This may not be NZ but be assured the creep is world wide. These folk aim to control the whole food supply & they’re well on target.
EnvirowatchRangitikei

(Natural News) Big Ag has found a way to make genetically modified seeds permanent, by quietly writing in “preemptive seed laws” at the state level. In twenty-nine states, men and women at the local level will no longer be able to discuss, debate, or propose laws on the use of genetically modified seeds. The people will not have any voice in their individual cities and municipalities to protect their fields, crops, property, and water from biotech experimentation.

Corporations that genetically modify seeds have infiltrated the state legislatures to further secure their monopoly and prevent scientific scrutiny of their seed experimentation. By passing “seed preemption laws” they can bar public discourse on seed laws at the local level. This is a new attack on free speech and democratic debate. The corporate interests in the agriculture sector want to shut people up who desire natural, unmodified foods. These same corporate interests have been successful in the past with “ag-gag” laws that bar anyone from photographing the abuses of factory farms. Whistleblowers and journalists who tried to document unsanitary and inhuman animal feeding operations have had the law turned against them. In much the same way, these new “seed preemption laws” turn the law against the voices of the common man and woman working locally for change.

Oregon, California, Texas, Montana and Iowa are just a few of the states that have fallen prey to these new laws. These laws are “designed to block counties and cities from adopting their own rules on the use of seeds, including bans on GMOs” In many parts of the country, decisions on seed use are left up to individual counties, cities, and municipalities. Now, Big Ag is finding ways to snuff out the people’s voices in the matter.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-11-17-29-states-quietly-pass-preemptive-seed-laws.html

Agribusiness, Agriculture, Corporations, News, Seeds

How The Elite And Greedy Corporations Are Destroying Thousands Of Years Of Agriculture

October 19, 2017 Pam Vernon 3 Comments

Save your real/organic/heirloom seeds people. They’re gold! See our resources page (main menu) to read ‘How the Other Half Dies’. (The real reason not the one you’ve been told).
EnvirowatchRangitikei

From Real Independent News and Film

By Colin Todhunter

The increasingly globalised industrial food system that transnational agribusiness promotes is not feeding the world and is responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises. Localised, traditional methods of food production have given way to globalised supply chains dominated by transnational companies policies and actions which have resulted in the destruction of habitat and livelihoods and the imposition of corporate-controlled, chemical-intensive (monocrop) agriculture that weds farmers and regions to a wholly exploitative system of neoliberal globalisation.

Whether it involves the undermining or destruction of what were once largely self-sufficient agrarian economies in Africa or the devastating impacts of soy cultivation in Argentina or palm oil production in Indonesia, transnational agribusiness and global capitalism cannot be greenwashed.

In their rush to readily promote neoliberal dogma and corporate PR, many take as given that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be custodians of natural assets. There is the premise that water, seeds, land, food, soil and agriculture should be handed over to powerful, corrupt transnational corporations to milk for profit, under the pretence these entities are somehow serving the needs of humanity.

These natural assets (‘the commons’) belong to everyone and any stewardship should be carried out in the common interest by local people assisted by public institutions and governments acting on their behalf, not by private transnational corporations driven by self-interest and the maximization of profit by any means possible.

The Guardian columnist George Monbiot notes the vast wealth the economic elite has accumulated at our expense through its seizure of the commons. A commons is managed not for the accumulation of capital or profit but for the steady production of prosperity or wellbeing of a particular group, who might live in or beside it or who created and sustain it.

Agribusiness, GE, GMO, monsanto, News, roundup, Seeds, syngenta

Poor Tanzanian farmers are facing heavy prison sentences if they continue their traditional seed exchange … courtesy of Monsanto

January 14, 2017 Pam Vernon 1 Comment

Monsanto who like to present themselves as the benevolent corporation that is set to solve the hunger problems of the world … is imprisoning people for sharing their seed?

Their previous foray into that department with the production of Golden Rice that was genetically modified and supposed to be enriched with Vitamin A didn’t cut the mustard it seems.

“No functioning Vitamin A rice has been produced in over 20 years of research” [Independent Science News]

Don’t be fooled, this company is about everything but feeding the hungry. Corporations have no qualms about lying and their uppermost concern is profits not people. This is what will happen if they get their foot in the door of your country. Unfortunately for NZ the foot got in the door decades ago with Roundup which farmers here love & won’t have a bar of any independent research about in my experience. Hence according to directions it’s sprayed all over fields and eaten by stock so non organic meat has to be full of it. That being in addition to GE food which is in our food chain Kiwis, no small wonder tests everywhere are finding it in breast milk and urine even. To have your water tested here is in the vicinity of $550 so that is fairly cost prohibitive. They have all bases covered. Your only real out is eat organic. An expensive exercise. Or grow your own without pesticides.

beets-1584454_1280 — Indigenous people have fed themselves quite adequately for centuries with heirloom seeds … not seen as a commodity to sell or patent they were passed down from generation to generation … free

So back to the topic of the seeds, currently we are allowed to keep our seed but seeds for years have been treated so as they won’t reproduce (hybridized). Which is why it’s important to get heirloom and save that seed for future years when they have hybridized and patented everything. You will have to buy their seed & saving it will be pointless or illegal or both.

And go figure on the ‘feeding the world’ claims. Watch the featured video on Monsanto and what they are really about.

Find further related articles under ‘categories’ and explore our Glyphosate pages at the main menu for the extensive independent research on glyphosate (particularly that of Professor Séralini) and further info on GMOs (Genetically modified plants have been genetically altered to tolerate the glyphosate present in Roundup so you get to ingest it, unlabeled because they consider you don’t need to know, it being safe and all). Enjoy the video! You’ll be shocked at the lengths this company go to to protect their profits. They even have their own seed police. And read what the Tanzanian people have been subjected to by the world bullies.

EnvirowatchRangitikei

READ THE ARTICLE ON TANZANIA:

Tanzanian farmers are facing heavy prison sentences if they continue their traditional seed exchange

In order to receive development assistance, Tanzania has to give Western agribusiness full freedom and give enclosed protection for patented seeds. “Eighty percent of the seeds are being shared and sold in an informal system between neighbors, friends and family. The new law criminalizes the practice in Tanzania,” says Michael Farrelly of TOAM, an organic farming movement in Tanzania.

‘If you buy seeds from Syngenta or Monsanto under the new legislation, they will retain the intellectual property rights. If you save seeds from your first harvest, you can use them only on your own piece of land for non-commercial purposes. You’re not allowed to share them with your neighbors or with your sister-in-law in a different village, and you cannot sell them for sure. But that’s the entire foundation of the seed system in Africa’, says Michael Farrelly.

Under the new law, Tanzanian farmers risk a prison sentence of at least 12 years or a fine of over €205,300, or both, if they sell seeds that are not certified.

‘That’s an amount that a Tanzanian farmer cannot even start to imagine. The average wage is still less than 2 US dollars a day’, says Janet Maro, head of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT).

Millions Spent, No One Served: Who is to Blame for the Failure of GMO Golden Rice?

Falling Short on Feeding the World

http://naturalsociety.com/top-6-companies-killing-natural-world-pesticides-also-biggest-seed-producers/