Newest Monsanto Crop in US
That's exactly what Flint Michigan residents Kathleen Kirby and Mark Fisher are banking on: their power to influence change. They're participating in a nationwide consumer boycott of Kellogg's Co. instigated by the Organic Consumers Association. By boycotting the world's largest cereal company, they hope to pressure Kellogg's into rejecting the use of sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets and to spark widespread market rejection in products ranging from cereal to baby food to candy.
As you may know, Roundup Ready sugar beets are genetically altered to resist Monsanto's toxic weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. But here's the scary truth about these beets:
When the USDA first approved GE sugar beets for commercial planting in 1998, the EPA also increased the maximum allowable residues of glyphosate on sugar beet roots from just 0.2 parts per million to 10ppm. That's a staggering 5,000 percent increase of allowable toxins on beet roots. And, it's little surprise that EPA made this policy change at the request of Monsanto.
Currently, only four major GE crops are sold commercially -- corn, cotton, soy, and canola. Most of these are engineered to withstand repeated, large doses of herbicides. For the most part, these crops and their byproducts are largely fed to animals with the exception of some minor food ingredients and oils. GE beet sugar breaks with this tradition in that it could become the first major GE ingredient added to almost all processed foods on our grocery store shelves.
Last week, Hershey's in Brazil announced that it would not source ingredients from Cargill, one of the world's largest food providers, because the company could not guarantee that soy, lecithin, and oils were not GE. This successful public pressure campaign, led by Greenpeace, influenced the company to reject GE beet sugar. It also demonstrates how individuals who care about food safety can mobilize collectively to make a difference.
Like Hershey's, Kellogg's is only one of thousands of companies that may soon be using GE sugar -- perhaps without even knowing that they are doing so! That could be the case unless, of course, consumer pressure forces the market to reject GE beet sugar.
Kirby and Fisher know that as a market leader, Kellogg's could lead the charge in rejecting GE beet sugar and influence other companies to follow suit.
They also know that although they are just two people living in a small, Midwestern city north of Detroit, and with the Internet at their disposal, they are on their way to changing the world, one e-mail message at a time.
One of the comments posted:
World agriculture is increasingly becoming dependent upon a single tool for weed control -- the weedkiller glyphosate, Monsanto's Roundup in particular. This situation is largely attributable to the rapid spread of GM, Roundup Ready (RR) crops, which is also driving the expansion of glyphosate-resistant weeds. Since Roundup is becoming less and less effective in killing weeds, farmers are turning to the use of more toxic and persistent herbicides, such as atrazine and 2,4-D, to eliminate those same weeds that formerly succumbed to Roundup.
Contrary to claims that Roundup adversely affects only plants, studies have shown that the weedkiller is toxic to amphibians, frogs, and earthworms. Studies suggest that Roundup is a potential hormone disruptor and it may be correlated with increased rates of birth defects and cell division dysfunction. At least one study has shown that children of glyphosate applicators experience higher rates of behavioral disorders than non-exposed populations.
So, there's ample cause for concern not only that more Roundup is being sprayed on sugar beets, but also that more residues - a 5,000% increase since 1998 - are being allowed on sugar beet roots!
Let's start with manure. A vote for high-intensity livestock production is a vote for huge manure lagoons created in animal factories housing thousands of cattle, pigs, and poultry crowded into confined animal feeding operations or CAFOs. These manure lagoons sicken rural people with their stench and often leak into surface waters or breech their containers, contaminating local streams with a flood of fecal matter, causing massive fish kills.
At CAFOs, cattle are force-fed corn that they were never meant to eat, creating unnaturally acidic conditions in their guts that foster development of deadly E. coli 0157:H7. The source of pathogenic E. coli is animal factories, not organic agriculture. Organic farmers use cover crops that fix nitrogen and spread safely COMPOSTED manure in their fields.
Once organic farming systems are established, their yields are close or equal to that of the destructive "high-intensity" agriculture systems that you recommend. Organic farmers produce high yields without using massive doses of nitrogen fertilizer that have numerous adverse side effects including huge emissions of nitrous oxides (potent global warming gases) and the creation of ever-expanding dead zones such as the one found in the Gulf of Mexico. Dead zones are caused by hypoxia, a lack of oxygen due to nitrogen fertilizer-induced overgrowth of marine plants that suck all the oxygen (life) out of the water and then die.
I am also worried about habitat destruction, but I guess you haven't heard that practices such as ripping out riparian habitats and farmland vegetation are currently being touted as the solution to combat E. coli 0157:H7. This is a big mistake and so is misleading people to think that high-intensity agriculture will solve our food safety problems when, actually, it's the root cause.
Lisa J. Bunin
Campaigns Coordinator Center for Food Safety and Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow
by Lisa J. Bunin
As you may know, Roundup Ready sugar beets are genetically altered to resist Monsanto's toxic weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. But here's the scary truth about these beets:
When the USDA first approved GE sugar beets for commercial planting in 1998, the EPA also increased the maximum allowable residues of glyphosate on sugar beet roots from just 0.2 parts per million to 10ppm. That's a staggering 5,000 percent increase of allowable toxins on beet roots. And, it's little surprise that EPA made this policy change at the request of Monsanto.
Currently, only four major GE crops are sold commercially -- corn, cotton, soy, and canola. Most of these are engineered to withstand repeated, large doses of herbicides. For the most part, these crops and their byproducts are largely fed to animals with the exception of some minor food ingredients and oils. GE beet sugar breaks with this tradition in that it could become the first major GE ingredient added to almost all processed foods on our grocery store shelves.
Last week, Hershey's in Brazil announced that it would not source ingredients from Cargill, one of the world's largest food providers, because the company could not guarantee that soy, lecithin, and oils were not GE. This successful public pressure campaign, led by Greenpeace, influenced the company to reject GE beet sugar. It also demonstrates how individuals who care about food safety can mobilize collectively to make a difference.
Like Hershey's, Kellogg's is only one of thousands of companies that may soon be using GE sugar -- perhaps without even knowing that they are doing so! That could be the case unless, of course, consumer pressure forces the market to reject GE beet sugar.
Kirby and Fisher know that as a market leader, Kellogg's could lead the charge in rejecting GE beet sugar and influence other companies to follow suit.
They also know that although they are just two people living in a small, Midwestern city north of Detroit, and with the Internet at their disposal, they are on their way to changing the world, one e-mail message at a time.
One of the comments posted:
World agriculture is increasingly becoming dependent upon a single tool for weed control -- the weedkiller glyphosate, Monsanto's Roundup in particular. This situation is largely attributable to the rapid spread of GM, Roundup Ready (RR) crops, which is also driving the expansion of glyphosate-resistant weeds. Since Roundup is becoming less and less effective in killing weeds, farmers are turning to the use of more toxic and persistent herbicides, such as atrazine and 2,4-D, to eliminate those same weeds that formerly succumbed to Roundup.
Contrary to claims that Roundup adversely affects only plants, studies have shown that the weedkiller is toxic to amphibians, frogs, and earthworms. Studies suggest that Roundup is a potential hormone disruptor and it may be correlated with increased rates of birth defects and cell division dysfunction. At least one study has shown that children of glyphosate applicators experience higher rates of behavioral disorders than non-exposed populations.
So, there's ample cause for concern not only that more Roundup is being sprayed on sugar beets, but also that more residues - a 5,000% increase since 1998 - are being allowed on sugar beet roots!
Let's start with manure. A vote for high-intensity livestock production is a vote for huge manure lagoons created in animal factories housing thousands of cattle, pigs, and poultry crowded into confined animal feeding operations or CAFOs. These manure lagoons sicken rural people with their stench and often leak into surface waters or breech their containers, contaminating local streams with a flood of fecal matter, causing massive fish kills.
At CAFOs, cattle are force-fed corn that they were never meant to eat, creating unnaturally acidic conditions in their guts that foster development of deadly E. coli 0157:H7. The source of pathogenic E. coli is animal factories, not organic agriculture. Organic farmers use cover crops that fix nitrogen and spread safely COMPOSTED manure in their fields.
Once organic farming systems are established, their yields are close or equal to that of the destructive "high-intensity" agriculture systems that you recommend. Organic farmers produce high yields without using massive doses of nitrogen fertilizer that have numerous adverse side effects including huge emissions of nitrous oxides (potent global warming gases) and the creation of ever-expanding dead zones such as the one found in the Gulf of Mexico. Dead zones are caused by hypoxia, a lack of oxygen due to nitrogen fertilizer-induced overgrowth of marine plants that suck all the oxygen (life) out of the water and then die.
I am also worried about habitat destruction, but I guess you haven't heard that practices such as ripping out riparian habitats and farmland vegetation are currently being touted as the solution to combat E. coli 0157:H7. This is a big mistake and so is misleading people to think that high-intensity agriculture will solve our food safety problems when, actually, it's the root cause.
Lisa J. Bunin
Campaigns Coordinator Center for Food Safety and Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow
by Lisa J. Bunin
posted by Leslie at
8:31 PM
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