NAIS Listening Sessions: Can a Monsanto Administration Really Hear?

Image at www.batag.com

By Rady Ananda

Scrap NAIS; decentralize the food industry

The hottest topic in agriculture is NAIS – the proposed National Animal Identification System. Using embedded microchips and mountains of paperwork, the federal government plans to create a database that tracks every animal in the nation. Independent producers and privacy advocates adamantly oppose the plan.

A Stormy Time for Indigenous Wisdom

PERU farmers in Paru Paru Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) by Milagros Salazar, IPS

By Stephen Leahy* IPS

VIENNA, Jul 6 (Tierramérica) - Indigenous peoples risk losing control over their traditional knowledge if the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) insists on strict standards for managing access to information.

Patents and other forms of restricting access to knowledge are very worrisome in a time of climate change, says a new report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). 

An angry letter to the Union of Concerned Scientists about its post on “food safety”

By The Writers’ Collective

You sent this out:

“Congress considers food safety legislation

“A federal bill that would significantly reform oversight of food safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. 

“The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 would give the FDA more authority to recall contaminated food, require more frequent inspections of food facilities, and improve traceability of foodborne pathogens.” 

Are you so seriously out of tune with how things really work?  The corporations do not allow trace back to their own contamination now, and certainly will not if this bill passes and they are given total control over the food supply.  

Failure to Yield

By Union of Concerned Scientists

For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields. That promise has proven to be empty, according toFailure to Yield, a report by UCS expert Doug Gurian-Sherman released in March 2009. Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields.

MADGE says GM can’t feed the world

SBS showed a programme called “Can GM food feed the world?” last Tuesday. It was presented as an organic farmer’s exploration into GM. Its claims that GM can feed the world, is safe and environmentally friendly are debunked here.

HR 2749 – An Agribusiness Empowering Act

By Steve Lendman

America is the truest example of what George Bernard Shaw meant when he said “Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few.” Obama is upholding the tradition and then some.

Celebrating food independence: Freedom from domineering food corporations

By Mike Adams, Natural News
July 7, 2009

I didn’t write a July 4th article this year. I was busy harvesting food out of my garden in Ecuador. Instead of celebrating geopolitical independence (which is what America’s July 4th holiday is about, after all), I was celebrating my food independence.