By Joan McDaniel August 6, 2016
Organic and GMO’s Labels
Anyone concerned with their health and the food they eat have heard the terms Organic and GMO. Maybe even the people who aren’t concerned about what they eat have heard about the two different labels. The American mainstream press isn’t either aware or they don’t consider it a news story. Not what would your health have to do with any kind of news story? Right?
If you are not aware, there has been a political battle over food and forcing a label on GMO or biotech modified foods. There has also been a growing Organic movement or demand for Organically or biodiversity grown food. It is also called the Clean Food Movement
Biotechnology is big food and they have poured millions of dollars into this fight against GMO labels. The Organic Movement or biodiversity is small it is your local farmer and your own back yard garden. It is very much like how our grandparents farmed using natural methods. It is self sustaining, and restorative
You can not stop the Organic and Clean Food Movement
“Buy Organic” is becoming all the rage. Since October 21, 2002, guidelines and a certified organic Label was established by the USDA which guaranteed the product was at least 95% Organic.
According to Organic consumers, The …”demand for organic and grass-fed food in the U.S. has doubled over the past six years…” “…making it a $50-billion-a-year powerhouse. “. According to several recent news articles Junk Food is loosing profits and even Monsanto’s earnings have declined with the growing concern of whats in my food? The number of Anti-GMO activist are growing also. These activist spreading awareness about the benefits of avoiding GMO crops grown with heavy use of toxic pesticides.
GMO Labeling Restriction
A review the Anti-GMO movement.
The Anti-GMO movement is trying to force multi-billion-dollar junk food and beverage giants (Campbell’s, Coco-Cola, Con-Agra, Dannon, Frito-Lay, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Nestlé, Pepsi, Smuckers, Starbucks, and others) to label their GMO-tainted products nationwide or to remove GMO ingredients.
The battle first began in Europe and Asia. There has been a green wave of genetically modified (GM) crop cultivation bans across Europe and now the Globe. Since April 2004, more than 64 nations require labeling including Russia, China, the EU, and important trading partners in Asia. There are thirty-eight (38) countries worldwide have officially banned the cultivation of GM crops. The list keeps growing. But critics say producers are using loopholes in the laws to avoid using the labels. Even so, there growing anti-GMO pressure from the Public.
Click link for a list of actual bans:
List of WorldWide GM Crops Now Banned
Anti-GMO Movement in the USA
The battle has now moved to the United Sates where Monsanto’s and the biotech industry influence runs deep. We or at least the investor capitalist or the “too big to fail” people who drive the economy love the biotech world. The NYSE folks seem to be more concerned about a “good investment” than they are about what they put in their stomachs.
Biotech covers many applications; bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing. Biotechnology has expanded to include Life science such as genomic, genetic engineering (GE) or genetic modification (GM or GMO).
The United Sates GMO Labeling War
Just this month a bill has become law making us the first country in the world to UNLABEL GMOs. Everyone else around the planet has passed laws to force labelling and restricting of GMO’s. But here in the US The Federal “Dark Act” so nicknamed has been signed into law and nullifies the state of Vermont’s GMO labeling law, which just went into effect July 1 of this year.
Over the past several years, more than 70 bills have been introduced in over 30 states to require GE (Genetic Engineered) or GMO (Genetic Modified) food to be labeled.
The State of Vermont
On May 2014 the State of Vermont passed and the governor signed a law requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods. It was the first law in the nation.
Right after Vermont passed their landmark GMO Labeling law, Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) filed suit challenging the law’s constitutionality. The law was challenged in Federal District Court and GMA suffered a DEVASTATING DEFEAT. The state of Vermont’s law stood.
America’s Dark Act
The biotech industry (another name for GMO) knows the Organic movement is growing in strength. According to an article from Organic authority “Anti-GMO labeling campaigns funded by big food, biotech companies, and trade associations spent…” millions in their campaigns.
The well-financed food and chemical industry pulled out the heavy guns to stop Vermont’s and prohibit other state law and turned to the Federal Level. A labelling law has been slowly working its way through Congress but suddenly it found new energy and support.
Then came the Dark Act. The “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014, dubbed the “DARK” (Denying Americans the Right to Know) Act, has been modified as a compromise bill that would create a mandatory, national labeling standard for GMO foods. This bill has now passed both Houses of Congress and on July 29, 2016 Obama signed it into law
State Laws Preempted
The bill preempts all states GMO labelling laws. Instead, the USDA has two years to decide what federal standards to develop for GMO labels. Once decided the label will be what is called a Q rating system. You need a smart phone and 800 number and a code to find out if the food is GMO or not. Talk about turning over the vault to the bank robbers. Now almost nothing can be called GMO. The way this is going maybe the only label a GMO food will have – is the one that reads ORGANIC!!!! Sorry, my humor escapes me sometimes.
Finally, is this the end to this bitter fight?
Or has the war just begun? Polls show nearly 90 percent of Americans support the Right to Know and support package labeling of GMO food. More than 4 million Americans have joined a petition urging FDA to require labeling of GMO food.
Legally the high-tech gigantic biomarker may have won the battle but the war has just begun. The consumer is beginning to understand and demand Organically grown food.
In Response the Large Food Market can’t find enough product to sell so paying farmers to go organic.
What Is All This Fuss About a Label?
Is there a reason the biotech industry is fighting so hard and the anti-GMO movement is growing? Is there something big food has to fear from a label? The Health Ranger asked the question “If GMOs are so good,why don’t the food companies want them listed on food labels?”
http://www.naturalnews.com/036209_GMO_labeling_ballot_measure_California.html
One reason is People wont buy any product with a GMO label and biotech knows it. There has also been a sea-change in attitude evidenced by consumers’ increasing preference for organic produce. The world’s second-largest retailer, Costco, announced this year that organic sales had jumped 72 percent since 2008, with its organics sales totaling $4 billion last year.
The War On GMO’s Is About Control of the Production of Food.
This isn’t an article that reviews the good, the bad and the Ugly about GMO or Organic but about what the real issue is and that is Who Owns The Food You Eat?
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
There is more to this battle than just a label. The real battle is over who owns the seed. What has been a traditional natural God driven process has been preempted by biotech science.
Traditionally an Individual not only could own seed, they could determine how and where they were going to grow that seed. It seems it was a God Given Right To own the seeds from the plants you planted and grew on your own. Big Food has changed that.
Who Owns the Seed?
The problem isn’t a label the problem is the control of the seed.
From the Web Site Seed Freedom:
In the our past seed is owned by farmers that sow it, grow it, save and exchange it. But all that has changed since the local farm has become big business and replaced by the Industrialized Factory Farm. Commercial seed industries developed and changed the whole picture. Large Multinational Corporations took control of ownership by buying up all small independent seed companies and modify the seeds with generic engineering.
Today, industrial giants like Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta have a monopoly control of most seeds. A patent was applied and granted for the invention of the GMO process. Once in control of all seed the seeds DNA was modified using the GMO process and the seed became exclusively owned by the inventor. The Inventor not the Farmer or anyone else had exclusive rights and all others can be sued for Patent infringement.
This process is extremely questionable for it is hard to think of a seed as the invention of Monsanto when It comes from nature but that is another battle for another time.
But for now according to an 2009 article from the Associated Press Monsanto uses patent law to control most of U.S. corn, and Soy seed market.
With control of the seed the Farmer no longer owns the seed and must buy and pay royalty on each and every seed he uses. If he does not he can be sued for patent infringement. When the plant is harvested, the seed must be repurchased for it is illegal to save seeds be they GMO or not. The Seed is no longer owned by the individual.
This takes a heavy toll on the small farmer and the developing country. This result in a sharp increase in the cost of farming making it unaffordable to even grow your own food.
A Great Video
I Have Found a Great Video Its goes for 5 minuets and its worth it
http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/youre-not-told-gmo-labeling.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhNryOPSJ0
UC_005 Why Are We Being Fed By A Poison Expert?
http://www.theundercurrent.com
Is the ‘old’ Monsanto, the one responsible for producing Agent Orange, PCB’s and DDT and a terrible record at covering up and denying the tragedies that have resulted from their use, the same as the ‘new’ Monsanto, the one at the forefront of research in plant gene technology? We argue their scientific and ethical track record is entirely relevant to what they do today.
And what they do today is control a huge portion of the crop seeds that feed the world. We’ve had a great deal of feedback, with some viewers suggesting that some of the negative comments may be attributed to ‘astroturfing’. Regardless, we welcome spirited, cordial discussion. Monsanto has asked for a right of reply, which we will post when we receive.
5:18
My Local Farmer and Growing My Own Food.
I have never felt comfortable with the Organic Label, for it is controlled by a Government Agency. I have found by my study of history that the bigger the profit margin the less people orientated the Government becomes. It takes a lot of money to keep and maintain a comfy elected office and John Q. Public doesn’t have a profit margin. He just might have some money left for take-home pay after taxes.
To me there are several other terms that can be used to mean the same thing as Organic, Clean Food is one I have seen. Organic should be the same as how your grandparents farmed the land naturally. That is why I have to see my food grow.
I’m trying to learn how to organically grow my own food. I am experimenting using several Methods without any manmade synthetic chemicals and I am having a lot of fun and eating some great food.
I attend my local Farmers market and visit my local farmer and farmer stands in the area. I buy as much as I can locally. There is certain food I can get from a market like grapefruit and special roots from the different island countries.
I also found this great picture that says it better than I do
Food for thought…
Terms
I have thrown in some terms and brief explanations hoping it will make this issue more understandable.
Briefly, Organic is also called Biodiversity or Clean Food or Natural farming like how we use to grow food without chemical fertilizers. GE or GMO is part of the 1980 biotech new life science. It stands for industrial, mass market, synthetic chemical farming.
Biotech Industry – Starting in the 1980s biotechnology was a new science. Monsanto invested heavily, hired new scientist, created new labs, performed extensive research and spent billions of dollars. The Biotech industry is the synthetic man-made industrial or factory farming. It represents big business and uses capital including government tax payer substitutes to create and mass produce food and food products. A good example is Agent Orange a pesticide used in the Vietnam War and Ethanol fuel. Industrial Farming relies heavily on chemical fertilizers and modified seed.
The terms Organic or biodiversity and the term GE Genetically Engineered or Biotech are complex and much can be said about both.
Generically Engineered (GE) and Generically Modified Organisms (GMO) are part of the Biotech World. Biotechnology – Has many applications; bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing. Biotechnology has expanded to include new and diverse science such as genomic, genetic engineering or genetic modification. The concept of “biotech” or “biotechnology” includes procedures for modifying living organism including the domestication of animals, the cultivation of plants and artificial selection and hybridization. This includes Genetic Engineering (GE), Genetic Modified organism (GMO),
GMO Patent – In early 1982, scientists at Monsanto, a multinational agricultural and Biotechnology Corporation, successfully engineered the first plant cells and was running field tests 5 years later. Monsanto has an exclusive Patent on GMO modified seeds. A plant which has had its seed DNA modified using this process is exclusively owned by Monsanto and so it any new seed the plant may produce. In the mid-nineties, Monsanto had quietly monopolized the agriculture and pesticide industry effectively buying out strategic seed breeding companies. Monsanto controls a large portion of seed production not only in the US but globally as well
Modern Farming Systems – Also call Corporate, or Industrial farming often include the use of heavy machinery, excessive tilling and harmful chemicals, disrupt the organic matter in the soil. Once the carbon molecules in the soil get exposed to the air, they combine with oxygen to create carbon dioxide, turning a natural carbon exchange system from healthy and fertile soil into a toxic atmospheric gas. These unnatural processes have sickened the living systems within the soil, and in many cases have cut off vitality completely—ruining the Health and sustainability in all too many agricultural ecosystems.
Organic or biodiversity – Biodiversity is the variety of life. Most people recognize biodiversity by species. Researchers have estimated that there are between 3 – 30 million species on Earth,
http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Conservation/Biodiversity.aspx. The term Organic relates to living organisms. Biodiversity measures the variety of life or organism in different ecosystems. All is interrelated and dependent on each other in each ecosystem. You are organic and so is all the living things around you.
Organic – Generally refers to food grown without synthetic (man-made) chemicals. The Organic movement began in the earl 1800s with the work of Justus Von Liebig. Justus’s work was in response the 1910 introduction and use of synthetic nitrogen as an artificial fertilizer used in the new developing Industrial agriculture or factory farm.
Organic Farming – refers to your local Farmer or your own back yard. Organic farming is the lonely individual farmer and the consumer. It doesn’t have much money behind it. Organic farming or sustainable living farming involves production of food without the use of artificial agents, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides. It sustains or replenish the land and provides food for all that is connected to it. Organic refers to a form of agriculture we used in the past to grow food. Organic uses what is called Green Manure from animals or Green fertilizer from other living things even weeds. Organic isn’t new to farming the Aztec’s used it as did many other ancient civilizations.
Regenerative Agriculture – a practice of farming, based on ecological principles, that builds soil health and recaptures carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Regenerative agriculture is building on the principles and practices of organic to help communities and soil thrive.
Till Next Time
