Agriculture

Flashback: Feds Order Farmer to Destroy His Own Wheat Crops and Pay a Large Fine

by

All those who voted for S.510 — which includes the entire U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike — are traitors to the freedoms upon which America was founded.

(NaturalNews) In arguing for S.501, the “Food Safety Modernization Act,” there are all sorts of attorneys, legislators and internet commentators who keep claiming, “The government won’t try to control the food production of small farms.” They say, “Your backyard garden is safe” and that the feds won’t come knocking on your door to control your seeds or foods.

As usual, these pushers of Big Government are utterly ignorant of the history in their own country. Because as you’ll learn right here, not only CAN the U.S. government control and dictate to single-family farms what they can grow in their own backyards; the government has already blatantly done so!

In this article, I’ll share with you the full and true story of how Big Government has already run rampant over the rights of individuals to grow their own food — I’ll even cite the US Supreme Court decision that “legalized” this tyranny.

How the tyrants came after a farmer named Roscoe Filburn

It all starts with a farmer named Roscoe Filburn, a modest farmer who grew wheat in his own back yard in order to feed his chickens.

One day, a U.S. government official showed up at his farm. Noting that Filburn was growing a lot of wheat, this government official determined that Filburn was growing too much wheat and ordered Filburn to destroy his wheat crops and pay a large fine to the federal government.

The year was 1940, you see. And through a highly protectionist policy, the federal government had decided to artificially drive up the prices of wheat by limiting the amount of wheat that could be grown on any given acre. This is all part of Big Government’s “infinite wisdom” of trying to somehow improve prosperity by destroying food and impairing economic productivity. (Be wary any time the government says it’s going to “solve problems” for you.)

The federal government, of course, claims authority over all commerce (even when such claims are blatantly in violation of the limitations placed upon government by the Constitution). But Roscoe Filburn wasn’t selling his wheat to anyone. Thus, he was not engaged in interstate commerce. He wasn’t growing wheat as something to use for commerce at all, in fact. He was simply growing wheat in his back yard and feeding it to his chickens. That’s not commerce. That’s just growing your own food.

But get this: The government insisted he pay a fine and destroy his wheat, so Filburn took the government to court, arguing that the federal government had no right to tell a man to destroy his food crops just because they wanted to protect some sort of artificially high prices in the wheat market.

This case eventually went to the US Supreme Court. It’s now known as Wickard v. Filburn, and it is one of the most famous US Supreme Court decisions ever rendered because it represents a gross expansion of the tyranny of the federal government.

The US Supreme Court sided with government tyranny

The US Supreme Court, you see, ruled that Roscoe Filburn’s wheat could be regulated and destroyed by the federal government simply because Roscoe’s wheat production might reduce the amount of wheat he bought from other wheat producers and therefore could impact interstate trade.

Now stay with me on this, because this is a really, really important point to understand.

The federal government claimed authority under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), even though the Commerce Clause was originally written primarily to prevent states from erecting tariffs, not to allow the federal government to control interstate trade. But thanks to the twisted interpretation of the government — and believe me, the government will twist every interpretation it can in an effort to assert more power over the population — the feds claimed that Filburn’s growing of his own wheat effectively reduced interstate commerce in wheat. Therefore, they reasoned, they could regulate his backyard wheat production (and order him to destroy his wheat).

Because of this US Supreme Court decision in 1942, it now means the federal government can order you to halt food production in your own back yard by arguing that when you grow your own food, the amount of food you purchase from other food providers is reduced, meaning that your food production impacts interstate trade and therefore can be fully controlled by the federal government.

In other words, the federal government claims the authority right now — even without the Food Safety Modernization Act — to knock on your door and order you at gunpoint to destroy all the food in your garden, your greenhouse or your farm. They can order you to destroy all seeds in your possession and all food harvested from your own garden. And they can do all this with the full protection of U.S. law by simply citing the precedent set in Wickard v. Filburn in 1942 as ruled by the US Supreme Court.

Read moreFlashback: Feds Order Farmer to Destroy His Own Wheat Crops and Pay a Large Fine

Unconstitutional S. 510 Food Safety Bill Passed by Senate in Late-Night Sneak Attack on Small Farmers and Food Freedom

by

See also:

– BETRAYED BY THE GOP – Unconstitutional S.510 Food Safety Modernization Act Sent Back to House Tuesday 12.21. PUSH BACK NEEDED NOW!

–  And Now: Democrats Pull Fast One With S. 510 Food Safety Bill

Criminals of the worst kind!

S.510 is the Patriot Act of farming, it will effectively destroy many small, local organic farms

(NaturalNews) The infamous S.510 “food food safety bill” was passed by the US Senate last night in a sneaky, last minute voice vote. All Senators voted for it, Republicans and Democrats alike. Not a single U.S. Senator — not even Coburn — objected to its passage.

With this vote, the US Senate now sends the bill back to the House of Representatives where it is due for a final vote as HR 2751 that would then send the bill to the White House for a presidential signature. This House vote could take place as early as tomorrow (Tuesday).

A betrayal of food freedom

This last-minute sneak vote of unanimous consent is widely considered a betrayal of food freedom by the few Republicans who had opposed this bill. TheHill.com posted their report on this unexpected turn of events late last night (http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatc…) and has since been overrun by comments from steaming mad members of the public who feel utterly betrayed by their Senators.

The Natural Solutions Foundation posted a blog entitled, “Betrayed by the GOP” which blasts Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike for approving this bureaucratic monster that will grow the size and power of the FDA (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=7824).
The Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund also posted an urgent action alert (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa…) urging people to call their representatives in Washington and oppose HR 2751.

Take action now to block this bill in the House

The U.S. House of Representatives meets Tuesday, which means we have 24 hours (or less) to fight back with an avalanche of phone calls to stop this bad, freedom-destroying bill from becoming law. The new bill name is HR 2751 (notice how they keep changing this around to confuse us?).

Join the millions of people who actively oppose this bill by calling your representatives in Washington and urging them to oppose passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act. If you don’t already know the phone number of your representatives in the House, the capitol switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Call that and they will connect you to your members of Congress.

Sign the NaturalNews petition to halt HR 2751 at:

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o…

And sign the petition from the Natural Solutions Foundation at: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/…

The betrayal

It’s important to understand the depth of betrayal that has just been committed by the GOP members of the US Senate. Democratic members of the Senate, of course, have always voted for S.510 because it’s a bill that expands the power of government and will unleash an army of FDA inspectors who roam the countryside harassing farmers and small growers. The expansion of government power over the People has almost always been unanimously supported by Democratic Senators.

But Republicans have been reluctant to see such a sudden expansion of FDA power and personnel. Some GOP members have opposed this bill because they see it as too overreaching, too powerful and too threatening to the food freedoms upon which this country was founded. So they tried to oppose the bill in order to keep the FDA out of our farms, gardens and greenhouses. And for a long time, Sen. Tom Coburn effectively blocked this bill from becoming law.

But Senator Harry Reid — the King of Corruption in the Senate, in my opinion — kept pushing this bill, backed by Big Agribiz corporate supporters who can’t wait to see small farms buried under the burden of compliance that would be unleashed under the bill. And no, all small farms are NOT exempt from this bill. In the world of agriculture, a small family farm growing food on as little as twenty acres can easily exceed $1 million a year in revenues (without much profit, because there isn’t much profit in most crops) and thereby be subjected to FDA tyranny under S.510.

S.510 is the Patriot Act of farming. And the reason it got so much support from the large corporations is because it will effectively destroy many small, local organic farms by suffocating them under a new regulatory burden — even when they’re not the problem to begin with! Food safety is only a problem because of the factory animal operations that comingle with large, corporate food operations, thereby contaminating fresh produce with animal-grown bacteria. E.coli, for example, cannot multiply in plants! It can only grow in the intestines of animals.

Read moreUnconstitutional S. 510 Food Safety Bill Passed by Senate in Late-Night Sneak Attack on Small Farmers and Food Freedom

The Food Crisis Of 2011

by

Related information:

– Transplanting Plum Island to Kansas: Is the US food supply at risk? (Yes!)

– USDA: No strategic grain reserves … they sold them!

– UN: Food prices may rise by up to 20%


Every month, JPMorgan Chase dispatches a researcher to several supermarkets in Virginia. The task is to comparison shop for 31 items.

In July, the firm’s personal shopper came back with a stunning report: Wal-Mart had raised its prices 5.8% during the previous month. More significantly, its prices were approaching the levels of competing stores run by Kroger and Safeway. The “low-price leader” still holds its title, but by a noticeably slimmer margin.

Within this tale lie several lessons you can put to work to make money. And it’s best to get started soon, because if you think your grocery bill is already high, you ain’t seen nothing yet. In fact, we could be just one supply shock away from a full-blown food crisis that would make the price spikes of 2008 look like a happy memory.

Fact is,  the food crisis of 2008 never really went away.

True, food riots didn’t break out in poor countries during 2009 and warehouse stores like Costco didn’t ration 20-pound bags of rice…but supply remained tight.

Prices for basic foodstuffs like corn and wheat remain below their 2008 highs. But they’re a lot higher than they were before “the food crisis of 2008” took hold. Here’s what’s happened to some key farm commodities so far in 2010…

  • Corn: Up 63%
  • Wheat: Up 84%
  • Soybeans: Up 24%
  • Sugar: Up 55%

What was a slow and steady increase much of the year has gone into overdrive since late summer. Blame it on two factors…

  • Aug. 5: A failed wheat harvest prompted Russia to ban grain exports through the end of the year. Later in August, the ban was extended through the end of 2011. Drought has wrecked the harvest in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan – home to a quarter of world production
  • Oct. 8: For a second month running, the Agriculture Department cut its forecast for US corn production. The USDA predicts a 3.4% decline from last year. Damage done by Midwestern floods in June was made worse by hot, dry weather in August.

America’s been blessed with year after year of “record harvests,” depending on how you measure it. So when crisis hits elsewhere in the world, the burden of keeping the world fed falls on America’s shoulders.

Read moreThe Food Crisis Of 2011

Urgent call to action on unconstitutional Senate Bill 510 Food Safety Modernization Act

by

This text will be replaced by the player



This urgent call-to-action video by the Health Ranger calls upon grassroots food freedom supporters to call their U.S. Senators on Monday, November 29, 2010, to oppose S.510.

Don’t miss:

Codex alimentarius is here:

In the US:

– In the wake of S.510 Fake food safety … it won’t be a matter of what’s for dinner … but will we have dinner?

– List of Bribed US Senators To Support Senate Bill S. 510 (‘Food Safety Modernization Act’)

– Unconstitutional Senate Bill S. 510 Vote Delayed Until After Thanksgiving

– Senate Bill S. 510 Food Safety Modernization Act Vote Imminent: Outlaws Gardening And Saving Seeds

– US Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

– RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers:

“This bill is the triumph of agri-bills”

“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”

“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”

“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”

“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”

In the EU:

– Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

– EU Legislation Puts An End To Herbal Medicine As We Know It

Cornucopia Institute files lawsuit to stop organic milk fraud

by

Legal complaint filed with USDA to stop organic milk fraud

(NaturalNews) Although it is illegal under current USDA rules, the agency is still tolerating organic milk producers who bring conventional dairy cattle onto their farms — pumped full of hormones and antibiotics — and then call them “organic” cows when they start giving milk. The Cornucopia Institute wants to put a stop to this obviously fraudulent practice, so it’s filing a lawsuit.

Much of the big name-brand “organic” milk produced in America actually comes from questionable factory farm operations that cut corners, exploit loopholes and essentially cheat consumers. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has been fighting this for years with public education campaigns, boycotts and legal strategies (http://www.organicconsumers.org/art…).

The Cornucopia Institute has also been at the forefront of this important issue with efforts to protect the honest organic dairy farms that are trying to compete with the big-name “organic” producers that are cheating by cutting corners. They discovered that even though the practice of bringing conventional heifers (young dairy cows) onto organic dairy farms is illegal, it is still being done anyway, and the USDA appears to be turning a blind eye to this practice.

You can read the Cornucopia Institute’s legal complaint at:
http://www.cornucopia.org/USDA/Natu…

Here’s the official announcement from Cornucopia:
(http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/11/c…)

Illegal Practice Damaging Family Farmers and Defrauding Consumers

Read moreCornucopia Institute files lawsuit to stop organic milk fraud

In the wake of S.510 Fake food safety … it won’t be a matter of what’s for dinner … but will we have dinner?

by

Related information:

– List of Bribed US Senators To Support Senate Bill S. 510 (‘Food Safety Modernization Act’)

– Unconstitutional Senate Bill S. 510 Vote Delayed Until After Thanksgiving

– Senate Bill S. 510 Food Safety Modernization Act Vote Imminent: Outlaws Gardening And Saving Seeds

Why is “free trade at any expense” reserved only for multi-national corporations?  Why is every other sector of the economy supposed to be allowed to engage in a free-for-all at the entire countries expense, but when it comes to family and independent agriculture there are literally hundreds of thousands of regulations, limitations, rules, and requirements, licensing, and forfeiture of rights,  spanning multiple agencies who spend the bulk of their funding on “enforcement” of what usually amounts to nothing less than an interference in trade, profit and viability and which many times constitute an open assault on Constitutionally protected property and individual rights.

Source: The PPJ Gazette

I can only imagine the salivating occurring behind the scenes in the District of Criminals, as the corporations and interested parties including the World Trade Organization, Codex Committees and other vested stakeholders anticipate the passage of S.510, the fake food safety bill.  Should this bill pass, we as a country will be officially divested not only of our sovereignty but of our independence.  No country in the history of the world has survived for long without a strong and independent agricultural sector.  Take that away, and the fall of the country soon follows.  No nation that cannot, or will not, feed its own people, ever survives.  Independent agriculture is and always has been the backbone and the underlying support for economic stability and security.  It is this support and security that S.510 seeks to destroy.

S.510 is not about food safety; it is however the last lynchpin in the seizure of food production and supply that was begun under Bush the Lesser.  Control the food; control the people.

This same model envisioned in S.510 was used in recent years in Poland.  An estimated 60% of Polish farms are now gone.  In India, more than 8 million farmers have left their farms as a result of similar systems implemented by the World Trade Organization on behalf of bio-pirates of all kinds.  Here in the US an estimated 1/3 of all farms that existed in 2000, have now vanished.  We are, according to farmaid.org , losing 3-500 farms and ranches every week as the industrialized corporate machine being driven by congress and its agencies rolls across our land.  Food safety never was the issue.  Food as a Weapon is another story.

S.510 is set up to increase and subsidize exporting of our food production.  With a food crisis building around the world and economists and geo-political prognosticators of all stripes predicting a massive food shortage, why in the world would our congress be contemplating passing a bill that expands and increases exports of our food products?  Wouldn’t the rational and logical strategy be:

  • to reduce exports,
  • stockpile as much grain in strategic reserve as possible, (USDA sold our strategic reserve in 2008)
  • strategic reserves of dairy commodities especially in the Western States where USDA claims there is a glut of dairy
  • reinforcement of local producers who can keep their surrounding communities supplied with fresh produce and meats
  • Subsidies for farmers markets which would not only encourage the entry into produce production but would also help to boost the economies of the communities
  • Re-establish the strategic reserves of grains and other commodities and make this irrevocable
  • Make export possible only if and when adequate supplies are built up to back up the US
  • Once surplus levels are established, allow export only at levels beyond this.
  • Limit imports to only those products we cannot produce here, such as various tropical fruits.

Read moreIn the wake of S.510 Fake food safety … it won’t be a matter of what’s for dinner … but will we have dinner?

UN: Food prices may rise by up to 20%

by

Poor harvests put global food reserves under pressure, with African and Asian countries likely to be worst hit


Prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally have risen by up to 40% in just a few months. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

The UN today warned that food prices could rise by 10%-20% next year after poor harvests and an expected rundown of global reserves. More than 70 African and Asian countries will be the worst hit, said the Food and Agricultural Organisation in its monthly report.

In its gloomiest forecast since the 2007/08 food crisis, which saw food riots in more than 25 countries and 100 million extra hungry people, the report’s authors urged states to prepare for hardship.

“Countries must remain vigilant against supply shocks,” the report warned. “Consumers may have little choice but to pay higher prices for their food. The size of next year’s harvest becomes increasingly critical. For stocks to be replenished and prices to return to more normal levels, large production expansions are needed in 2011.”

Prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally have risen by up to 40% in just a few months. Sugar, butter and cassava prices are at 30-year highs, and meat and fish are both significantly more expensive than last year.

Food price inflation – fuelled by price speculation, the searing heatwave in Russia in the summer and heavy trading on futures markets – is now running at up to 15% a year in some countries. According to the UN, international food import bills could pass the $1tn mark, with prices in most commodities up sharply from 2009.

Read moreUN: Food prices may rise by up to 20%

Senate Bill S. 510 Food Safety Modernization Act Vote Imminent: Outlaws Gardening And Saving Seeds

by

This is unconstitutional and violates your basic human right to grow your own food!

This is treason!

“The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
– Thomas Jefferson

Your help is needed to halt the tyrannical new “S.510” U.S. Senate bill that could criminalize saving seeds and outlaw backyard garden food production. It is being called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.”


(NaturalNews) Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.” It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public’s right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer’s markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don’t comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.

“It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” – Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower (http://shivchopra.com/?page_id=2)

This tyrannical law puts all food production (yes, even food produced in your own garden) under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. Yep — the very same people running the TSA and its naked body scanner / passenger groping programs.

This law would also give the U.S. government the power to arrest any backyard food producer as a felon (a “smuggler”) for merely growing lettuce and selling it at a local farmer’s market.

It also sells out U.S. sovereignty over our own food supply by ceding to the authority of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Codex Alimentarius.

It would criminalize seed saving (http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/20…), turning backyard gardeners who save heirloom seeds into common criminals. This is obviously designed to give corporations like Monsanto a monopoly over seeds.

It would create an unreasonable paperwork burden that would put small food producers out of business, resulting in more power over the food supply shifting to large multinational corporations.

I encourage you to read more about this dangerous bill at the Food Freedom blog on WordPress: http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/20…

S.510 in more detail:

– Food Safety Bill S. 510: Local Farms Could Be Illegal

Take action now or lose your right to grow your own food

Sign this petition at Citizens for Health:
http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=2312

Do it today! This is really important.

In addition, the Cornucopia Institute recently sent out an urgent call-to-action email containing the following information: (http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/11/a…)

How to protest Senate Bill 510

1) Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code in the box in the upper right hand corner.

2) Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number. You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.

3) Once connected ask to speak to the legislative staff person responsible for agriculture. If they are unavailable leave a voice mail message. Be sure to include your name and phone number.

Give them this message in support of the “Tester Amendment” which would exempt small farms from S.510:

“I am a constituent of Senator___________. I ask that he/she support the Tester Amendment to the food safety bill. The Tester Amendment will exempt the safest, small, owner-operator farms and food facilities and farmers who direct market their products to consumers, stores or restaurants. Food safety legislation should not create inappropriate and costly regulatory barriers to family farms and the growing healthy food movement in the drive to crack down on corporate bad actors. Please support the Tester Amendment and market opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms, and small food processing facilities.”

You may also wish to explain that you oppose the Food Safety Modernization Act in its entirety, and it is a destructive, freedom-crushing law that will destroy the future of food in America.

Remember, America has already lost control over its money supply to the Federal Reserve (nearly a hundred years ago). America has lost its health due to the medical industry and its profit-from-sickness agenda. Now we may lose our right to grow our own food and save our own seeds if Senate Bill 510 passes.

This is a dangerous, tyrannical law that would thrust the American people into an age of darkness and malnutrition. It would criminalize many of the very people growing our food and turn food production into yet another corporate monopoly.

Please take the time right now to contact your U.S. Senator and voice your strong opposition to this bill.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
by Mike Adams

Source: Natural News

Codex alimentarius is here:

In the US:

– US Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

– RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers:

“This bill is the triumph of agri-bills”

“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”

“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”

“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”

“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”

In the EU:

– Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

– EU Legislation Puts An End To Herbal Medicine As We Know It

Food Safety Bill S. 510: Local Farms Could Be Illegal

by

Codex alimentarius is here:

In the US:

–  US Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

– RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers

In the EU:

– Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

– EU Legislation Puts An End To Herbal Medicine As We Know It

USDA Plans To Allow GM Sugar Beet Planting During Lawsuit

by

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Federal agriculture officials have released a plan to let farmers plant genetically modified sugar beets while a lawsuit over them is resolved, but farmers fear a partial lifting of a court-ordered ban won’t come in time for next year’s crop.

A federal judge in California issued an order last summer halting the planting of genetically modified sugar beets until the U.S. Department of Agriculture completes an environmental impact study on how the beets could affect conventional crops. The ruling had a widespread effect since nearly all the nation’s sugar beet farmers had converted to genetically modified seed.

Half of the nation’s sugar comes from sugar beets, and 95 percent of them are grown using so-called Roundup Ready seed produced by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. The seeds are engineered to withstand the weed killer Roundup, allowing farmers to reduce the use of other chemicals and limit tilling, which kills weeds but can contribute to erosion.

Read moreUSDA Plans To Allow GM Sugar Beet Planting During Lawsuit

Philippines May Lose 600,000 Tons of Rice From Supertyphoon

by


Super Typhoon Megi satellite photo

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) — The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice buyer, may lose 600,000 metric tons of the crop as Supertyphoon Megi, the strongest to hit the nation this year, strikes some of the nation’s biggest producing areas, a government official said. Rice futures advanced.

“Once the typhoon hits those areas, the crop will be affected,” Agriculture Undersecretary Antonio Fleta said in a phone interview from Manila. “Even if farmers harvest the damaged rice, they’d have a hard time drying the grain. There may not be much left to sell.”

About 157,000 hectares of land planted to rice in Cagayan and Isabela provinces may be in the path of the typhoon, Fleta said. Megi has sustained winds of 270 kilometers (168 miles) per hour, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said, making it a Category 5 storm capable of catastrophic damage.

Half of the planted areas in the two provinces are ready for harvest and the rest are in the reproductive stage, leaving them susceptible to damage, Fleta said.

Damage to Philippine crops would come amid production losses in other countries, further curbing the global harvest and potentially sustaining a rally in prices.

Rough-rice futures have surged 43 percent from this year’s low of $9.55 per 100 pounds on June 30 as flooding in Pakistan and dry weather in the U.S. cut harvests. The contract for November delivery advanced for a fifth consecutive day today, gaining 0.3 percent to $13.655 on the Chicago Board of Trade at 12:10 p.m. Singapore time.

Read morePhilippines May Lose 600,000 Tons of Rice From Supertyphoon

Australia: Crops threatened by locust plague of Biblical proportion

by

An area of farmland the size of Spain could be destroyed by a swarm of locusts in western Australia.

Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are all affected, with hundreds of farmers reporting that locust eggs have begun hatching on their land.

Published: 11:35AM BST 02 Oct 2010
Source: The Telegraph

‘Cows Eat Grass’ and Other Inflammatory Statements

by

Cows eat grass. You wouldn’t think it’s a big deal to state this, but at Iowa State University a highly qualified job applicant who had the temerity to voice this simple biological fact was ejected from consideration for a post leading a sustainable agriculture program, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Among those who study sustainability, saying cows should eat grass is not a controversial statement. But saying so in Iowa—which grows more corn than any other state—is likely to attract attention.

Well, it sure did. Ricardo Salvador is a well-respected sustainable agriculture expert and a former professor at Iowa State—and a natural, many observers thought, to lead the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture as its new director. A finalist for the position, however, he didn’t get the post even when the top candidate turned it down. Apparently, his cow comment came back to haunt him:

The remark that may have sunk Mr. Salvador’s candidacy came 37 minutes into his on-campus presentation. While discussing a research project in New York State, he mentioned meat being “produced in the natural way that meat should be produced, which is on land suitable for grasses and perennial crops.”

If this were a TV game show, a loud buzzer would have gone off and Mr. Salvador would have been escorted from the stage that very moment. Because apparently he was supposed to say that cows should eat corn. Even if that’s not natural or sustainable, it’s simply how things are done in Iowa, a state built on big agriculture:

Corn allows cows to get fatter faster and be ready for slaughter sooner. But there are downsides, including the fact that cows have trouble digesting corn and must be fed antibiotics to prevent them from becoming ill. What’s more, the beef from corn-fed cows tends to have more fat.

The danger of the truth is so great that the Chronicle couldn’t even get Wendy Wintersteen, the dean of Iowa State’s agriculture school, to go anywhere near it. When asked whether cows evolved to eat grass, she replied, “I don’t have an opinion on that statement.”

Sheesh. Consider, for a moment, the man that the Leopold Center is named for, famed conservationist Aldo Leopold. In 1939, in the essay “A Biotic View of Land,” he wrote:

Each species, including ourselves, is a link in many chains. The deer eats a hundred plants other than oak, and the cow a hundred plants other than corn. Both, then, are links in a hundred chains.

Sorry, Mr. Leopold, but I’m going to cut you off right there before you say anything more inflammatory. Some university officials are not going to be happy about this.

Read more‘Cows Eat Grass’ and Other Inflammatory Statements

Interview With Robyn O’Brien, Author Of ‘The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother’s Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America’s Food Supply’

by

the-unhealthy-truth

Amazon.com: – The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother’s Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America’s Food Supply– and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself

Amazon.de: – The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother’s Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America’s Food Supply– and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself


Added: 19. July 2010

Alex Bogusky interviews Robyn O’Brien, author of The Unhealthy Truth

RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers

by

“This bill is the triumph of agri-bills”

“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”

“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”

“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”

“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”


Added: 22. August 2010

Dr Rima Laibow MD tells how massive public PUSH BACK has held of the forced industrialization of food bill, S.510 in the US Senate, since last November.

Now the PUSH BACK must continue or we risk the bill being rushed through in September as a “noncontroversial” unanimous consent bill. Action Item at www.healthfreedomusa.org to educate decision makers.

More from Dr. Rima E. Laibow:

– Dr. Rima E. Laibow MD reports from the Codex Committee on Nutrition Labeling

– Dr. Rima E. Laibow on Codex Alimentarius and Food Nazification

– Dr. Rima E. Laibow on the Contamination of the Food Supply & Deadly Antibiotics

– Nutricide – Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs

And after you have watched Dr. Rima E. Laibow and read the article below you will know exactly why the Gates Foundation Bought 500,000 Monsanto Shares.

Follow the money!

The Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) Makes it Illegal To Grow, Share, Trade And Sell Homegrown Food

us-constitution-dhs

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act,  may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.  It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.  It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.”  ~ Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.

Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create – without judicial review – if it passes. S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.

History

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry.  Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control.  Monsanto promoted HACCP.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president.  Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto.  Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.

S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

1.  It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency.  It resembles the Kissinger Plan.

2.  It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security.  It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection.  Instead, S 510 says:

COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

3.  It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.

4.  It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements.  Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.

5.  It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.

6.  It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease.  Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents.  Animal diseases can be falsely declared.  S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.

7.  It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.

8.  It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer.  The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.

9.  It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe.  The five items listed – the Five Pillars of Food Safety – are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.

10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied.  It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.

Read moreRED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers

GMO Sugar Beets – Monsanto Wins Again

by

See also: The GMO Catastrophe In The US, A Lesson For The World

sugar-beets-monsanto-wins-again

Last Friday a federal judge imposed a nationwide ban on GMO sugar beets and it was overturned the next business day. Sugar beets comprise 50% of the sugar used in US food, and 95% of the sugar beets grown in the US are GMO. It is the jurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture to determine whether plants are environmentally safe; this case is about whether the plants can cross pollinate (by wind, insects, etc) and contaminate other plants. This could have cost Monsanto billions of dollars.

Less than 2 weeks ago, wild growing canola in North Dakota was discovered to be 86% GMO. Because GMO crops are crossed with herbicide resistant plants (usually weeds), they grow like weeds and contaminate natural plants. Alarmingly, two of the canola samples collected by scientists showed that multiple genes from different species of GMO canola plants cross pollinated without cultivation, and probably for several generations. The implication of this is that GMO seeds can readily contaminate natural seeds and become out of control.

The GMO alfalfa ban lawsuit about contamination was the first GMO case ever heard by the Supreme Court, despite countless lawsuits from farmers whose fields have been polluted by GMOs. The sugar beet ban was overturned, based on a Supreme Court decision (7-1), which lifted the nationwide ban on GMO alfalfa in June.

The Supreme Court ruling stated that the nationwide GMO alfalfa ban was too broad, so it was lifted; an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to be performed by the USDA is still pending. GMO crops are environmentally dangerous because they can readily spread, as proven by the wild GMO plants found in North Dakota. The Supreme Court never addressed the issue of whether GMO plants contaminate natural plants through cross pollination.

Read moreGMO Sugar Beets – Monsanto Wins Again

The GMO Catastrophe In The US, A Lesson For The World

by

monsanto1

Recently the unelected potentates of the EU Commission in Brussels have sought to override what has repeatedly been shown to be the overwhelming opposition of the European Union population to the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in EU agriculture. EU Commission President now has a Maltese accountant as health and enviromnent Commissioner to rubber stamp the adoption of GMO. The former EU Environment Commissioner from Greece was a ferocious GMO opponent. As well, the Chinese government has indicated it may approve a variety of GMO rice. Before things get too far along, they would do well to take a closer look at the world GMO test lab, the USA. There GMO crops are anything but beneficial. Just the opposite.

What is carefully kept out of the Monsanto and other agribusiness propaganda in promoting genetically manipulated crops as an alternative to conventional is the fact that in the entire world until the present, all GMO crops have been manipulated and patented for only two things-to be resistant or “tolerant” to the patented highly toxic herbicide glyphosate chemicals that Monsanto and the others force farmers to buy as condition for buying their patented GMO seeds. The second trait is GMO seeds that have been engineered genetically to resist specific insects. Contrary to public relations myths promoted by the agribusiness giants in their own self-interest, there exists not oné single GMO seed that provides a greater harvest yield than conventional, nor one that requires less toxic chemical herbicides. That is for the simple reason there is no profit to be made in such.

Giant super-weeds plague

As prominent GMO opponent and biologist, Dr Mae-Wan Ho of the  Institute of Science in  London has noted, companies such as Monsanto build into their seeds herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide. The enzyme is derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Insect-resistance is due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). The United States began large scale commercial planting of GMO plants, mainly soybeans and corn and cotton around 1997. By now, GM crops have taken over between 85 percent to 91 percent of the areas planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US, on nearly 171 million acres.

The ecological time-bomb that came with the GMO according to Ho, is about to explode. Over several years of constant application of patented glyphosate herbicides such as Monsanto’s famous and highly Roundup, new herbicide-resistant “super-weeds” have evolved, nature’s response to man-made attempts to violate it. The super-weeds require significantly more not less herbicide to control.

ABC Television, a major US national network, made a recent documentary about the super-weeds under the rubric, “super weeds that can’t be killed.”[1]

They interviewed farmers and scientists across Arkansas who described fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost €400000 in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds.

The new super-weeds are so robust that harvester combines are unable to harvest the fields and hand tools break trying to cut them down. At least 400000 hectares of soybean and cotton in Arkansas alone have become invested with this new mutant biological plague. Detailed data on other agricultural regions is not available but believed similar. The pro-GMO and pro-agribusiness US Department of Agriculture has been reported lying about the true state of US crop harvest partly to hide the grim reality and to prevent an explosive revolt against GMO in the world’s largest GMO market.

gmo-superweeds
Superweed

One variety of super-weed, palmer pigweed can grow up to 2.4 meters high, withstands severe heat and prolonged droughts, and produces thousands of seeds with a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it takes over an entire field in a year. Some farmers have been forced to abandon their land. To date palmer pigweed infestation in GMO crop regions has been identified in addition to Arkansas, also in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and most recently, Alabama and Missouri.

Weed scientists at the University of Georgia estimate that just two palmer pigweed plants in every 6 meter length of cotton row can reduce yield by at least 23 percent. A single weed plant can produce 450 000 seeds. [2]

Roundup toxic danger being covered-up

Read moreThe GMO Catastrophe In The US, A Lesson For The World

Germany Takes Stand against Patents on Plants and Animals: ‘Limits We Should Not Cross’

by

The problem started with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980). Suddenly it was OK to patent life forms, were before life forms were considered a part of nature and were not patentable.

This ruling lead to corporations patenting the genes of everything they can think of that could later on bring them profit.

germany-takes-stand-against-patents-on-plants-and-animals
Should conventional breeding techniques be patentable?

German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner has spoken out against the patenting of varieties of livestock and plants. Her comments come as the European Patent Office prepares to rule in a test case with far-reaching implications for biological patents in Europe.

The German government wants to prevent the patenting of agricultural livestock and plants. “There are limits that we should not cross,” Germany’s Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection Ilse Aigner told SPIEGEL. In order to preserve genetic variety, farmers and breeders should not be handcuffed by biological patents, she argues.

Aigner, who is a member of the conservative Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, wants to make European rules regarding biological patents more precise. Although the agriculture minister does not oppose the patenting of new breeding procedures, she argues that the resulting whole organisms should not be patentable.

She is supported in her position by the parliamentary group of the opposition center-left Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD even goes one step further, arguing that neither conventional breeding methods nor whole organisms should be patentable.

Read moreGermany Takes Stand against Patents on Plants and Animals: ‘Limits We Should Not Cross’

US Supreme Court Lifts Ban On Monsanto’s GM Alfalfa

by

us_supreme_court_032

WASHINGTON, USA (AFP) – The Supreme Court lifted Monday a four-year ban on the sale in the United States of genetically modified alfalfa, which farmers fear contaminates others crops.

A district court judge in California in May 2007 blocked the US biotech giant Monsanto from selling alfalfa seeds that it had genetically modified to resist its Roundup weed killer.

Read moreUS Supreme Court Lifts Ban On Monsanto’s GM Alfalfa

UN Report Warns: Food Prices To Rise By Up To 40% Over Next Decade

by

I expect food prices to rise over 100% in the not too distant future.

Growing demand from emerging markets and for biofuel production will send prices soaring, according to the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

somalia-protest-over-high-food-prices
Somalis protest over high food prices during the spike of 2008. (Getty Images)

Food prices are set to rise as much as 40% over the coming decade amid growing demand from emerging markets and for biofuel production, according to a United Nations report today which warns of rising hunger and food insecurity.

Farm commodity prices have fallen from their record peaks of two years ago but are set to pick up again and are unlikely to drop back to their average levels of the past decade, according to the annual joint report from Paris-based thinktank the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The forecasts are for wheat and coarse grain prices over the next 10 years to be between 15% and 40% higher in real terms, once adjusted for inflation, than their average levels during the 1997-2006 period, the decade before the price spike of 2007-08. Real prices for vegetable oils are expected to be more than 40% higher and dairy prices are projected to be between 16-45% higher. But rises in livestock prices are expected to be less marked, although world demand for meat is climbing faster than for other farm commodities on the back of rising wealth for some sections of the population in emerging economies.

Although the report sees production increasing to meet demand, it warns that recent price spikes and the economic crisis have contributed to a rise in hunger and food insecurity. About 1 billion people are now estimated to be undernourished, it said.

Fairtrade campaigners said the predictions of sharply rising prices provided a “stark warning” to international policymakers.

“Investment to encourage the 1 billion people whose livelihoods rely on smallholder agriculture is vital. Not only will this increase yields but will go a long way to increase prosperity in poverty stricken regions,” said Barbara Crowther, director of communications at the Fairtrade Foundation.

“At the same time, the promise of increased agriculture commodity prices could spark a new surge in land grabbing by sovereign wealth funds and other powerful investors which risks marginalising further rural communities who must be included in solutions to secure and maintain food supplies.”

Read moreUN Report Warns: Food Prices To Rise By Up To 40% Over Next Decade

Haitian Farmers to Burn Donated Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

by

haitian-farmers-to-burn-donated-monsanto-hybrid-seeds
Jonas Deronzil from Verrettes has been farming since 1974. Like small producers throughout Haiti, his meager income from corn, rice, and beans is threatened by new competition from Monsanto.

“A new earthquake” is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto’s seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation’s presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent of May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds…, and on what is left our environment in Haiti.”[1] Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto’s offer of Roundup Ready GMO seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMO.

Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto’s Director of Development Initiatives, called the news that the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation “a fabulous Easter gift” in an April email.[2]  Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, especially GMO seeds, in both the global North and South, including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing. According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, they then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year, under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.

Read moreHaitian Farmers to Burn Donated Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Billons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

by

Recommended reading:

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

bees-billions-of-colonies-die-worldwide
Catastrophic collapse: More than three million colonies in America and billions of bees worldwide have died since 2006

The world faces a future with little meat and no cotton because of a catastrophic collapse in bee colonies, experts have warned.

Many vital crops are dependent on pollination by honeybees, but latest figures show a third failed to survive the winter in the U.S.

More than three million colonies in America and billions of bees worldwide have died since 2006.

Pesticides are believed to be a key cause of a crisis known as Colony Collapse  Disorder (CDD), damaging bee health and making them more susceptible to disease.

But scientists do not know for certain and are at a loss how to prevent the disaster. Other potential factors include bloodsucking parasites and infections.

Some experts believe bees are heading for extinction.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. fell by 34 per cent last  winter, according to a survey by the country’s Agricultural Research Service,  and some commercial beekeepers have reported losses of more than 60 per cent over a year.

Read moreBillons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide