Thumbs down for Monsanto
All over the world, people and governments are beginning to realise that the GM (Genetically Modified) seeds being peddled by chemical giants such as Monsanto do not ‘feed the world’ as claimed. Their purposed is to lock farmers into a dependency on yearly sowing of sterile seed that will not reproduce itself and often needs the back-up of the company’s own pesticides and herbicides if it is to succeed.
Last week, Mexico became the latest country to ban GM corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country’s borders. European countries have declared themselves so opposed to GM that Monsanto has pulled out of its European operation.
The island of Kauai has passed a law compelling farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of GM crops. The same bill insists on a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes. The much larger island of Hawaii has given preliminary approval to a bill that prohibiting open air cultivation, propagation, development or testing of GM crops or plants.
The biggest bombshell of all, however, is being primed in Washington state, where a public ballot is riding on evidence that 93% The mail-in ballot state’s voters are already weighing in on Initiative 522, which would mandate the labelling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Knowing full well that 93 percent of the American public wants to see GM products labelled as such in the shops. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a lobby for the junk food industry, has been fighting the requirement for labelling, but a lawsuit against it alleges that the GMA illegally shielded the identity of the contributors, who chipped in more than $7 million to defeat the labelling initiative. Surprise, surprise, these contributors turn out to be Pepsico, Coca-Cola, NestleUSA, General Mills and a few other junk food companies. And, worse, the lawsuit reveals that the GMA held a series of secret meetings to hatch a money-laundering scheme and illegally hide member donations from the Washington State voters now being balloted about GM labelling.
Monsanto didn’t even bother to hide the more than $4 million it has given to beat the labelling campaign. Together with GMA and a handful of other corporate donors, a staggering $17 million has gone into their effort to stop Washington’s GM labelling ballot initiative. The final ballots will be cast in Washington on November 5th. The pro-labelling side is ahead in the most recent polls, but a barrage of heavily funded and misleading ads may yet end hopes to see labelling made compulsory.
Why are Monsanto and the junk food industry spending tens of millions of dollars every year to keep you in the dark about the foods they supply? Clearly, there are things that Big Food doesn’t want us to know.
Meanwhile, Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP, wrote a passionate Guardian attack on the Coalition’s Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, who still believes that GM crops are the salvation of the world. ‘GM,’ Goldsmith thundered, ‘has never been about feeding the world … it is and always has been about control of the global food economy by a tiny handful of giant corporations. It’s not wicked to question that process [as Paterson had asserted]. It is wicked not to.’
Great stuff.
