San Francisco Mayor’s Ag Plan Soon to Bear Fruit

Dearborn Garden SF

By Heather Knight
San Francisco Chronicle

Vegetable gardens will soon be sprouting in unlikely places throughout San Francisco including a building that produces steam to heat the Civic Center, Department of Public Works land in the Bayview, outside McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park and at the San Francisco Police Academy in Diamond Heights.

The public library has installed gardens outside its Mission and Noe Valley branches with plans for more and is leading classes for teens on how to cultivate them.

Genetic Shock: ‘DNA unpatentable’ says NY District Court

Patents on genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer are invalid, ruled a New York federal court on Monday.

By The Economist

Personalized medicine has proved an elusive dream. Since the decoding of the human genome, biotechnology companies have claimed that by matching a person’s genetic make-up with specialised treatments, they can tailor drugs to maximise benefits and minimise side effects. Alas, researchers have discovered that the link between a given person’s genetic make-up and specific diseases is much more complex than they had hoped. The tantalising vision remains out of reach.

Superfood Cereals: A review of the most delicious and nutritious superfoods for morning meals

Superfood Cereal, Acai-Blueberry-9oz, Living Intentions-raw organic ingredients

By Mike Adams
Natural News

I grew up eating a lot of cereal. Sadly, it wasn’t the healthiest stuff, either: Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops and other sugary processed foods drowned in pasteurized, processed cow’s milk. Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived my childhood diet…

Even as a health-conscious adult, I still find myself enjoying a bowl of healthy cereal, but of course now I use almond milk or sometimes rice milk instead of cow’s milk.

As far as the cereal itself goes, finding a really nutritious and delicious breakfast cereal has been a challenge for a number of years: The mainstream so-called “healthy” processed cereals at the grocery store are all dead, processed foods usually made with extra fiber, less sugar or whole grains — just enough to call them “healthy” when, by my standards, they aren’t very healthy at all. Even most so-called “all natural” cereals still don’t meet the standards of what I’d like to put into my body on a regular basis.

Investors are buying up Detroit and turning it into farmland

By Ethan Huff
Natural News

A once-bustling mecca of American industry, Detroit, Michigan today lies mostly in blight and ruin. An empty shell of what it once was, “Motor City” has become largely abandoned with the crumbling of the American automobile industry and other once-domestic manufacturing industries that have otherwise outsourced to China. However, a handful of investors hope to bring recovery to Detroit by bringing back the industry which began the city in the first place: farming.

Pro-GMO chemical polluter becomes Obama’s ag trade negotiator

Islam Siddiqui

By Rady Ananda

Despite declining bee and butterfly populations from agricultural chemicals, on Saturday the US Senate approved President Barack Obama’s nomination for chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Monsanto lobbyist Islam Siddiqui.

“Dr. Siddiqui’s confirmation is a step backward,” said Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (the “Center”). “His appointment ensures the perpetuation of pesticide- and fossil-fuel-intensive policies, which undermine global food security and imperil public health and wildlife.”

The Looming Water Disaster that Could Destroy California, and Enrich Its Billionaire Farmers

A part of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta (Columbia Univ.)

By Yasha Levine
AlterNet

There’s a disaster waiting to happen in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and a handful of wealthy farmers seem to like it that way.

“That, in your own backyard there, is the scariest place after New Orleans.” — Geologist Nicholas Pinder’s description of the precarious situation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta after the hurricane Katrina disaster.

Imagine the devastating flooding of Hurricane Katrina multiplied by epic sandstorms, drought and economic collapse of the Dust Bowl. Now picture it happening an hour east of Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and spreading all the way down to the Mexican border.

Whole Foods, United Natural Foods Muscle Suppliers to Boycott Consumer Group

By Corporate Crime Reporter

Organic Consumers Assn charges the US’ main distributors of organic foods, Whole Foods and United Natural Foods, with strong arm intimidation tactics, after OCA demanded they stop marketing conventional chemical foods as natural.

Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, aka Monsanto Man

By D. Snodgrass
Celsias

In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto’s third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.

Here’s where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.

Bush Sr to Monsanto (1987) ‘Call Me. We’re in the dereg business’

Ever wonder how genetically modified food got approved in the US behind the public’s back? This clip from the film, The World According to Monsanto, captures the moment:

Cities Sue Over Weed Killer in the Water

By Nikki Gloudeman
Change.org

As Change.org has previously reported, atrazine is as ubiquitous as it is dangerous.

The most widely used weed killer in the country, it spreads swiftly to municipal water—where it has been found to lower sperm counts for men and increase the risk of breast cancer and fertility problems in women. When tested on frogs, it was even powerful enough to turn males into functional females.

Why Go Organic – Ten Top Reasons

By Nathan Batalion ND
Healing Talks

Here are the ten top reasons to GO ORGANIC

EFFECTS ON OUR TOPSOIL
The soil of our earth is the foundation of the whole human and environmental food chain and thus our survival. The typical organic farm is teaming with life – from butterflies, to frogs, to bees, to you name it. Conventional farms have polluted and depleted and thus “dead” soils. They have been rendered sterile, using herbicides and pesticides to kill other life forms. Also through the vast degradation of our soil, we are losing cropland topsoil seven times faster than it is being replaced naturally. This ties in to the philosophy of raw-wisdom that the conventional vision of nature is death-centered  mechanical rather than life-centered.

ECOTERRORISM: Agent Orange Victims Aren’t Enough for Monsanto; Now GM Food

By Len Aldis
Salem-News.com

Pressure On Monsanto needs to keep increasing, to avoid more deadly consequences from the folks who brought the world Agent Orange; this time is it genetically modified food.

It is to be hoped that the ruling of the court will be in favour of common sense; in short the safety of our food, so essential to every man, woman and child on this planet. It is nothing short of a crime that one company, namely Monsanto, has control of 95% of the seeds being planted for food.

SmartStax Corn: Corporate War on Bees

Oaxacan graffiti. Photo by Chris Stowers, http://oaxacanyear.blogspot.com/

By Prof. Joe Cummins
The Institute of Science in Society

US regulatory agencies are aiding and abetting in killing bees and more

This report has been submitted to the US EPA on behalf of ISIS

SmartStax corn

Smartstax is a genetically modified (GM) corn that has eight GM traits combined or ‘stacked’ together, six for insect resistance (Bt) and two for herbicide tolerance. Current stacked GM trait crops on the market only have up to three traits each. SmartStax was created through a collaboration between Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, allowing the two corporations to share GM traits. The traits are combined together using crosses between existing transgenic corn lines rather than using genetic transformation of a single maize strain. Interestingly, a collection of old transgenes brought together with traditional crosses are being described as the ‘new’ technology.

Watching two scientific paradigms collapse: GMOs and vaccines

By Meryl Williamson

Those promoting genetic engineering have claimed it is the cutting edge of science.  Those in opposition are treated as ill-informed.  African scientists who reject genetic engineering are treated as a needy, backward underclass and “starved for science.” Vaccines are considered the greatest gift of modern medicine and those opposed are said to be putting others’ lives at risk.

But whatever high ground the biotech and vaccine industries have claimed for themselves scientifically is crumbling.  Both paradigms are beginning to collapse.