Tag Archives: Monsanto

Path of proposed pipeline through Lowndes County

That pipeline that starts in PCB-polluted Anniston, Alabama, where would it cross Lowndes County?

Two routes, one north to south, another from Brooks County southeast to the Florida line.

Pipeline points with streets Pipeline points with imagery

On this google map, A is the land mentioned in Massive pipeline project may cross Lowndes, by Jason Schaeffer, VDT, 30 June 2013, B, C, and D several of the parcels listed in the letters Sabal Trail Transmission LLC sent Lowndes County (another is very near D). They all form pretty much a straight line north to south. The actual route probably Continue reading →

GM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider

A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:

Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
This letter is on Monsanto’s own website. It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to poison people the Monsanto way. The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted. Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that other research indicates is toxic to humans. These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.

June 12, 2012 
The Honorable Harold Rogers 
Chairman 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
H‐307 U.S. Capitol 
Washington, D.C. 20515  		The Honorable Norm Dicks 
Ranking Member 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
1016 Longworth House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
Page 1

Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:   

Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading →

Monsanto rider came from south Georgia: Jack Kingston GA-01

Jack Kingston (GA-01) slipped the Monsanto rider into a recent law, requiring “the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed”.

Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote for AlterNet 8 July 2012, The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?

Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) — who not coincidentally was voted “legislator of the year for 2011-2012” by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont. As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a “champion of America’s biotechnology industry” who has “helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States.”

The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s PR about that award of 24 April 2012 says down at the bottom:

Photos of the award presentation are available upon request.

If that award is such an honor, why are they hiding the pictures of Jack Kingston receiving it? If Monsanto’s products are so great, why don’t they label them so we can tell which they are? Why did a French court just uphold a conviction of Monsanto for poisoning a French farmer? Why does Monsanto oppose independent GMO research? And why did hundreds of thousands of people just march against Monsanto?

Could it be because of liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects, pollution of water and air, systematic gaming of the patent system, perversion of the regulatory system, and corruption of the legislative system?

Speaking of corruption, Kingston has put the survival of biotechnology companies above the survival of farmers and the health of the American people.


Jack Kingston, voted Biotech “Legislator of the Year.” Responsible for adding the Monsanto Immunity Rider to the farm bill (H.R. 5973, Section 733). Tell him what you think!
www.facebook.coim/jackkingston/, 202-225-5821, 912-352-0101

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Even George Will is calling for drug legalization

We can’t afford this anymore:
A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence.
It’s time to legalize, regulate, and tax drugs, taking tax money away from private prisons and police militarization, and freeing it up for education, health care, and rehabilitation.

George F. Will wrote 11 April 2012, Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

Will-like, he ignores the real reasons we’re locking up so many people (corporate greed), but he does get at the consequences: Continue reading →

Blazer Gardens recognized by VDT for promoting healthy food

Healthy food got recognition on the front page of the VDT today.

In today’s capitalistic food market, several people have felt compelled to begin “living organically.” This philosophy has been brought to Valdosta and centralized by a group at Valdosta State University.

Bobbi Hancock, a VSU student, founded Blazer Gardens@VSU in August 2010. The group currently has 14 active members.

“There was reports of a food pantry being implemented on campus and that was implemented because there was students going to the dining hall asking for food,” said Hancock. “I just thought, if we could teach students how to grow food, it would eliminate a lot of the issues we have with campus hunger.”

Blazer Gardens started as nothing but seeds in the yard of Kathryn Grant, an organization member.

“This was an opportunity for me to understand and for me to appreciate how my food is grown,” said Grant.

From their professor:
Dr. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto, Blazer Gardens faculty advisor and VSU professor of modern classical languages, said she feels compelled to get involved with this organization.

“I think we are what we eat, so I want to be clean and organic and safe,” said Espinosa-Dulanto.

Maybe they can help us all not eat poisons and even stop Monsanto and ConAgra from poisoning our food supply. It’s good health and it’s good business.

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the relatives of those people don’t care who is winning (the drug war) —Carlos Fuentes

A writer of fiction tells the truth about the failed war on drugs. We’re way past the beginning and middle of this story: time to end it. Which makes this a very bad time to build a private prison that depends on the war on drugs.

Anita Singh wrote for the Telegraph today, Carlos Fuentes: legalise drugs to save Mexico,

Fuentes, Mexico’s greatest writer and a former diplomat, addressed the contemporary problems of Latin American — in particular, Mexico’s drug problem.

He said: “The drug traffickers are in Mexico, they send the drugs to the US and once they get across the border what happens? We don’t know who consumes them. We can’t prosecute, we can’t defend. It’s a very difficult situation for us Mexicans. The governments of the US and Mexico have to fight drug trafficking together.”

Fuentes believes that decriminalising drugs is the only way to end the violence that in the past five years has claimed nearly 50,000 lives of gang members, security forces and innocent bystanders.

“It is a confrontation. Sometimes we win, sometimes they win. But there are 50,000 killed and the relatives of those people don’t care who is winning.

Nobody is winning except the profiteers in arms and pesticides, such as Monsanto. And even mighty MON is losing to Boliviana negra. Alcohol prohibition produced Al Capone and other gangsters; the failed War on Drugs produced drug gangs and ever more vicious militarization of police forces, right up to the Mexican failed “solution” of calling out the Army into the streets.

We’re all losing through lack of money for education and militarization of our own police. We can’t afford this costly failed experiment. The real solution is the same today as in 1933: legalize, regulate, and tax. That will also drop the U.S. prison population way down, saving a lot of money that can be used for education. It’s going to happen eventually, so building more prisons that will end up being closed is a bad idea.

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Organic food market booming

What continued to grow right through the recession? Local and organic foods, especially sold through farmers’ markets and traditional supermarkets.

Carol Hazard wrote in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 21, 2011, Organic, natural food catching on:

U.S. sales of organic foods and beverages grew from $1 billion in 1990 to $24.8 billion in 2009, according to the Organic Trade Association.

The sector saw double-digit growth — often more than 20 percent — every year over the past decade except 2009, at the tail-end of the recession. Even then, organic sales rose 5.9 percent from the previous year while total food sales increased only 1.6 percent.

The article didn’t link to the study, but here it is: Industry Statistics and Projected Growth.

Further from the Times-Dispatch article:

National grocers are pumping up their organic and natural food selections. Even Wal-Mart and its Sam’s Club warehouse division are paying attention.
Continue reading →

Bioengineered Eucalyptus to Replace Pine Trees?

As Steve’s Forestry Blog noted last summer:
ArborGen made a request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to plant 260,000 flowering genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees over 330 acres in seven states. USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is processing this request. Several plantations already exist in Florida and Alabama.

The tree is Eucalyptus grandis x urophylla. The plant is a cold-hardy eucalyptus that ArborGen is developing for future commercial purposes, mainly pulp for paper.

Paul Voosen writes in Scientific American that
Even given government incentives and a price on carbon, however, ArborGen must satisfy concerns from regulators and environmental groups that its engineered trees will not, especially when gifted with the ability to resist cold, spread untrammeled through forests.
It’s easy to see pollen from such trees blowing onto neighboring land and new trees growing. And, given the tactics of a certain other GM plant producer, it’s easy to see the patent owner sueing the adjacent landowner for patent theft, even though the patented plant trespassed. This is the level of assurance that that won’t happen:
“When you talk about trees, storms happen, wind blows,” he said. “The containment is not absolute. There is the chance of some spread. Is it likely to become an invasive weed? Seems unlikely to me.”
Not very reassuring. Meanwhile, the test stations continue to spread: Continue reading →