GM Golden Rice in the Philippines Stopped: The Deception of Development and the Politics of Progress

by Colin Todhunter, Asia-Pacific Research
April 29, 2024

On 19 April 2024, the Philippines Supreme Court issued a cease-and-desist order on the commercial propagation of genetically modified (GM) Golden Rice and GM eggplant in the country.  

The Stop Golden Rice Network says that the court decision is a victory for farmers and consumers everywhere as the decision goes beyond Golden Rice and insecticidal eggplant and covers “any application for contained use, field testing, direct use as food or feed or processing, commercial propagation, and importation of GMOs.”

The court recognised that government agencies and other proponents of GM Golden Rice and GM eggplant “failed to submit proof of safety and compliance with all legal requirements.” The order remains indefinite until GMO proponents can fulfil all the mandated steps and provide concrete evidence that these GMOs are indeed safe.

A network of farmers, consumers and civil society organisations, Stop Golden Rice emphasises the need to address hunger and malnutrition through securing small farmers’ control over resources such as seed, appropriate technologies, water and land.

The campaign group says:

“We believe that GM crops are primarily pushed by global monopoly capitalists in food and agriculture… there is already irrevocable evidence of the failure of GM crops and how it has contributed to further indebtedness, crop failures, hunger and loss of biodiversity.”

It states that the court’s decision shows that ordinary people can prevail in the face of corporate power.

The Story of Golden Rice 

Vitamin A deficiency is a problem in many poor countries in the Global South and leaves millions at high risk of infection, diseases and other maladies, such as blindness.

The agritech industry has long argued that Golden Rice is a practical way to provide poor farmers in remote areas with a subsistence crop capable of adding much-needed vitamin A to local diets. Lobbyists say that Golden Rice, developed with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, could help save the lives of around 670,000 children who die each year from Vitamin A deficiency and another 350,000 who go blind.

Such claims, however, are based more on spin than reality, and, over the years, the interests behind Golden Rice have wasted no time in attacking anyone who questioned it.

As Britain’s Environment Secretary in 2013, the now disgraced Owen Paterson claimed that opponents of GM were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”. He called for the rapid roll-out of vitamin A-enhanced rice to help prevent the cause of up to a third of the world’s child deaths. He claimed:

“It’s just disgusting that little children are allowed to go blind and die because of a hang-up by a small number of people about this technology. I feel really strongly about it. I think what they do is absolutely wicked.”

On Twitter, The Observer’s Nick Cohen chimed in with his support by tweeting:

“There is no greater example of ignorant Western privilege causing needless misery than the campaign against genetically modified golden rice.”

The rhetoric took the well-worn cynically devised PR line that anti-GM activists and environmentalists are little more than privileged, affluent people residing in rich countries and are denying the poor the supposed benefits of GM crops.

Despite these smears and emotional blackmail, in a 2016 article in the journal Agriculture & Human Values Glenn Stone and Dominic Glover found little evidence that activists were to blame for Golden Rice’s unfulfilled promises.

Researchers still had problems developing beta carotene-enriched strains that yield as well as non-GM strains already being grown by farmers. It was questionable whether the beta carotene in Golden Rice could even be converted to vitamin A in the bodies of badly undernourished children. There had also been little research on how well the beta carotene in Golden Rice would hold up when stored for long periods between harvest seasons or when cooked using traditional methods common in remote rural locations.

In the meantime, Glenn Stone noted that that, as the development of Golden Rice crept along, the Philippines had managed to slash the incidence of Vitamin A deficiency by non-GM methods.

So, whose interests were really being served in the push for Golden Rice?

In 2011, Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist with a background in insect ecology and pest management, answered this question:

“An elite, so-called Humanitarian Board where Syngenta sits – along with the inventors of Golden Rice, Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and public relations and marketing experts, among a handful of others. Not a single farmer, indigenous person or even an ecologist or sociologist to assess the huge political, social and ecological implications of this massive experiment. And the leader of IRRI’s Golden Rice project is none other than Gerald Barry, previously Director of Research at Monsanto.”

Sarojeni V Rengam, executive director of Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific, called on the donors and scientists involved to wake up and do the right thing:

“Golden Rice is really a ‘Trojan horse’; a public relations stunt pulled by the agribusiness corporations to garner acceptance of genetically engineered (GE) crops and food… money and efforts would be better spent on restoring natural and agricultural biodiversity rather than destroying it by promoting monoculture plantations and GE food crops.”

To tackle disease, malnutrition and poverty, you have to first understand the underlying causes – or indeed want to understand them.

Renowned academic Walden Bello notes that the complex of policies that pushed the Philippines into an economic quagmire over the past few decades is due to ‘structural adjustment’ that included the restructuring of agriculture and export-oriented production.

And that restructuring of the agrarian economy is something touched on by Claire Robinson of GMWatch who notes that leafy green vegetables used to be grown in backyards as well as in rice (paddy) fields on the banks between the flooded ditches in which the rice grew.

Ditches also contained fish, which ate pests. People thus had access to rice, green leafy veg and fish – a balanced diet that gave them a healthy mix of nutrients, including plenty of beta-carotene.

But indigenous crops and farming systems have been replaced by monocultures dependent on chemical inputs. Green leafy veg were killed off with pesticides, artificial fertilisers were introduced, and the fish could not live in the resulting chemically contaminated water. Moreover, decreased access to land meant that many people no longer had backyards containing leafy green veg.

Blindness in developing countries could have been eradicated years ago if only the money, research and publicity put into Golden Rice over the last 20 years had gone into proven ways of addressing Vitamin A deficiency. However, instead of pursuing genuine solutions, what we have seen is pro-GM spin in an attempt to close down debate.

Technology and Development 

If the discussion so far tells us anything, it is that technology is not neutral. It is developed and promoted by people who want to cement their control over a sector and stand to financially gain from its rollout.

All too often, politicians, corporations and the media equate new technology with ‘progress’. And those who question it, as we see with GMOs, are called Luddites or anti-science in order to prevent proper debate over the social, economic and ethical concerns of rolling out a given technology.

Take the Green Revolution, for instance. There was nothing progressive, inevitable or neutral about its seed, chemical and related infrastructure technology.

Despite it being rolled out under the banner of ‘progress’, it underperformed, was exploitative and has had devastating social, ecological and environmental impacts (see the writings of Prof. Glenn Stone, Vandana Shiva and Bhaskar Save). It served US geopolitical, financial and agribusiness interests and prioritised urban-industrial expansion at the expense of rural communities and a more diverse, healthy and nutrient-sufficient agriculture.

But the Green Revolution became integral to the ‘development’ agenda.

In a recent article on the Winter Oak website, Paul Cudenec says that ‘development’:

“… is the destruction of nature, now seen as a mere resource to be used for development or as an empty undeveloped space in which development could, should and, ultimately, must take place. It is the destruction of natural human communities, whose self-sufficiency gets in the way of the advance of development, and of authentic human culture and traditional values, which are incompatible with the dogma and domination of development.”

Cudenec argues that those behind ‘development’ have been destroying everything of real value in our natural world and our human societies in the pursuit of personal wealth and power. Moreover, they have concealed this crime behind all the positive-sounding rhetoric associated with development on every level.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in India.

The World Bank, the World Trade Organization, global agribusiness and financial capital are working to corporatise India’s agriculture sector. This ‘structural adjustment’ policy and process involves displacing the current food production system with contract farming and an industrial model of agriculture and food retail that serves the above interests.

The plan is to displace the peasantry, create a land market and amalgamate landholdings to form larger farms that are more suited to international land investors and export-oriented industrial farming.

The demand is that India sacrifice its farmers and its own food security for the benefit of a handful of billionaires. This is all passed off as ‘development’.

It involves the state facilitating the enrichment of a wealthy elite and privileging a certain model of social and economic development based on urban sprawl, centralised power and dependency on global finance, corporations, markets and supply chains. All legitimised under the banners of innovation, technological progress and ‘development’.

There are other pathways that humanity can take. Anthropologist Felix Padel and researcher Malvika Gupta offer some insights (based on their work with India’s Adivasi communities) into what the solutions or alternatives to ‘development’ might look like:

“Democracy as consensus politics rather than the Western model of liberal democracy that perpetuates division and corruption behind the scenes; exchange labour rather than the ruthless, anti-life logic of ‘the market’; law as reconciliation rather than judgements that depend on exorbitant legal fees and divide people into winners and losers… and learning as something to be shared, not competed over.”

However, we see more ‘development’ being proposed: more rural population displacement and human dislocation, more mining, port and other big infrastructure developments and the further entrenchment of corporate interests and their projects.

While many have a different vision for the future, self-interest and consumerism underpinned by economic neoliberal dogma continue to seduce the masses into accepting the prevailing ‘development’ agenda.

Corporate industrial agriculture is integral to that agenda. A model that took hold half a century ago in the Western nations and which has resulted in nutrient-deficient food, narrower diets, the massive use of agrochemicals, food contaminated by hormones, steroids, antibiotics and a wide range of chemical additives, the eradication of many smallholder farmers, spiralling rates of ill health, degraded soil and contaminated and depleted water supplies.

That’s ‘progress’? Well, agribusiness interests aside, perhaps so for the many private health clinics that have sprung up in India in recent years.

The introduction of GMOs represents a further entrenchment of the prevailing ‘development’ agenda.

The decision by the Philippines Supreme Court called out government agencies and those behind the Golden Rice agenda for key failures. This is important for India, whose Supreme Court is about to decide on whether to sanction the commercial cultivation of GM mustard. It would be India’s first GM food crop (of which there are many more in the pipeline).

Will India’s Supreme Court come down on the side of reason and stop GM mustard on the basis of there being no need for GMOs in Indian agriculture and the well-documented fraud and regulatory delinquency that has surrounded this issue for many years?

That remains to be seen.

Many of the issues presented above are discussed in the author’s free e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order.

Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

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Cover image credit: consolesafari

Raw Milk at the Crossroads… Again

by Sally Fallon Morell, Nourishing Traditions (Weston A, Price Foundation)
April 23, 2024

Few of us were born when the forces for milk pasteurization launched the first major attack on Nature’s perfect food. In 1945, a magazine called Coronet published an article, “Raw Milk Can Kill You,” blaming raw milk for an outbreak of brucellosis in a town called Crossroads, U.S.A., killing one-third of the inhabitants. The Reader’s Digest picked up the story and ran it a year later.

Just one problem with this piece of “reporting.”  There was no town called Crossroads and no outbreak of brucellosis.  The whole story was a fabrication—otherwise known as a lie.  And lies about raw milk have continued ever since.

Unfortunately, the fictitious Crossroads story paved the way for laws against selling raw milk, starting with Michigan in 1948.

Here’s another example of lies against raw milk (which I referenced in an earlier post,[i] but it is worth repeating). In 2007, John F. Sheehan, BSc (Dy), JD, US Food & Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition (USFDA/CFSAN), Division of Dairy and Egg Safety, prepared a Powerpoint maligning raw milk; it was presented to the 2005 National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) by Cindy Leonard, MS.[ii]

As shown in the table below, all of the fifteen reports associating outbreaks of foodborne illness with raw milk that Sheehan cites are seriously flawed. For example, in two of the fifteen, the study authors presented no evidence that anyone consumed raw milk products and in one of them, the outbreak did not even exist. Not one of the studies showed that pasteurization would have prevented the outbreak.

Fast forward to the present and the ruckus about bird flu in dairy cows—more lies, very clever lies, but lies nevertheless.

In a press release dated March 25, 2024 ,[iii] the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as state veterinary and public health officials, announced investigation of “an illness among primarily older dairy cows in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico that is causing decreased lactation, low appetite, and other symptoms.”

The agencies claim that samples of unpasteurized milk from sick cattle in Kansas and Texas have tested positive for “highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).” Officials blame the outbreak on contact with “wild migratory birds” and possibly from transmission between cattle. The press release specifically warns against consumption of raw milk, a warning repeated in numerous publications and Internet postings.

According to the press release, national laboratories have confirmed the presence of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) through testing, but it does not reveal the type of test used to detect this so-called viral illness.

THE FIRST LIE:   Researchers have found HPAI virus in the milk of sick cows.

Officials have NOT found any viruses in the milk or any other secretions of the sick cows. The CDC has yet to reply to repeated requests for proof of finding the isolated HPAI virus in any fluid of any sick chicken or other animal.[iv] Nor have health and agriculture agencies in Canada,[v] Japan[vi], the UK[vii] and Europe[viii] provided any proof of an isolated avian influenza virus.

As for all the studies you can find in a PubMed search claiming “isolation” of a virus, not one of them shows the true isolation of a virus, any virus, from the fluids (phlegm, blood, urine, lung fluids, etc) of any animal, bird or human.[ix]

The truth is that “viruses” serve as the whipping boy for environmental toxins, and in the confinement animal system, there are lots of them–hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia from excrement, for example.[x]  Then there are toxins in the feed, such as arsenic added to chicken feed, and mycotoxins, tropane and β-carboline alkaloids in soybean meal.[xi] By blaming nonexistent viruses, agriculture officials can avoid stepping on any big industry toes nor add to the increasing public disgust with the confinement animal system.

Way back in 2006, researchers Crowe and Englebrecht published an article entitled, “Avian flu virus H5N1: No proof for existence, pathogenicity, or pandemic potential; non-‘H5N1’z causation omitted.”[xii]Nothing has changed since then.

Here’s your homework assignment:  Contact USDA at Aphispress@usda.gov and ask them to provide proof of the isolation of the HPAI virus or any virus in the milk of the sick cattle.

SECOND LIE: National laboratories have confirmed the presence of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) through testing.

They don’t say anything about the kind of test they used, but it almost certainly the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. The PCR test detects genetic material from a pathogen or abnormal cell sample and allows researchers to make many copies of a small section of DNA or RNA. The test was not designed to determine or diagnose disease, it was designed to amplify or increase a certain piece of genetic material.

Each “amplification” is a doubling of the material.  If you amplify thirty times you will get a negative; amplify 36 times or more, and you will get a positive.  At 60 amplifications, everyone will “test positive” for whatever bit of genetic material you believe can cause disease.[xiii] If you want to show that you have a pandemic brewing, just amplify, amplify, amplify. Folks, this is not a valid test, not good science by any stretch of the imagination—especially as there was no virus to begin with.

How many times did our health officials amplify the samples they obtained from the milk of the sick cows?  Be sure to ask them when you email Aphispress@usda.gov for proof of the virus.

THIRD LIE: The “virus” is highly pathogenic.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one—just one–person working in the dairies got sick and tested positive for avian influenza after exposure to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with the H5N1 bird flu.[xiv]  The person reported eye redness, or conjunctivitis, as his only symptom—a symptom that can be explained by exposure to any of the many airborne toxins in confinement dairies.  (How are they treating the illness? With vitamin A and herbal eyedrops?  No, the poor sod is getting treatment with a toxic antiviral drug.)

According to the CDC, the disease in humans ranges from mild infections, which include upper-respiratory and eye-related symptoms, to severe pneumonia.  If the “virus” is so highly pathogenic, we’d expect a lot of workers working around these sick cows to end up in the hospital. . . but we’ve heard of none so far.

FOURTH LIE: You can get avian fly from drinking raw milk, but pasteurized milk is safe

According to medical biologist Peg Coleman,[xv] “Recent risk communications from CDC, FDA, and USDA regarding transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus or HPAI (subtype H5N1) to humans via raw milk include no supporting evidence of viral transmission from raw milk to humans in the peer-reviewed literature. . . An extensive body of scientific evidence from the peer-reviewed literature . . . does not support the assumption by these US government agencies that [non-existent] HPAI transmits to humans via milkborne or foodborne routes and causes disease. Nor does the scientific evidence support the recommendation that consumers should avoid raw milk and raw milk products [emphasis in the original].”[xvi]

Coleman notes the suite of bioactive components in raw milk, including bovine milk, that destroy pathogens and strengthen the gut wall. “Many of these bioactive components of raw milk are . . . sensitive to heat and may be absent, inactive, or present in lower concentrations in pasteurized milks. . . Cross-disciplinary evidence demonstrates that raw milk from healthy cows is not inherently dangerous, consistent with the CDC evidence of trends for 2005-2020 and evidence of benefits and risks. There is no scientific evidence that HPAI in raw milk causes human disease.”

And while USDA, FDA and CDC assure the public that pasteurization will make milk safe, they note that “Milk from infected animals is being diverted or destroyed,” implying that pasteurization alone does not guarantee safety. In any event, sales of industrial pasteurized milk continue their relentless decline.

Fortunately, raw milk drinkers are already skeptical of government pronouncements and are skilled at seeing through lies.  Both large and small raw milk dairy farms report that sales are booming. The current bird flu fracas is just another Crossroads, U.S.A., a bunch of lies fostered by a dishonest dairy industry taking aim at the competition.

The Weston A. Price Foundation administers A Campaign for Real Milk and is the number one advocate for returning to the types of foods that nourished our ancestors.  Consider becoming a member to support this work.

[i] https://nourishingtraditions.com/got-raw-milk-ucla-professor-of-medicine-says-no-thanks/

[ii] https://www.realmilk.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SheehanPowerPointResponse-UpdatedAug2010.pdf

[iii] https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-announcements/federal-state-veterinary-public-health-agencies-share-update-hpai/

[iv] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/CDC-avian-influenza-PACKAGE-redacted.pdf

[v] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Canadian-Food-Inspection-Agency-PACKAGE-redacted.pdf

[vi] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Japan-National-Institute-of-Infectious-Diseases-avian-influenza-virus-PACKAGE.pdf

[vii] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/UK-Animal-and-Plant-Health-Agency-H5N1-PACKAGE.pdf

[viii] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ECDC-H5N1-avain-influenza-PACKAGE-redacted.pdf

[ix] https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-05-11-excel-Papers-NCFAD_and_ADRI-Lehtbridge-ATIP_request.xlsx

[x] https://healthfully.com/effects-breathing-raw-sewage-8372308.html

[xi] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0963996922005488

[xii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7173052/

[xiii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Htd9CzPYY

[xiv] https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/bird-flu-human-infection-texas-cattle-885b00be

[xv] https://www.colemanscientific.org/about

[xvi] https://www.colemanscientific.org/blog/2024/4/7/where-is-the-evidence

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German Truckers Team Up With Farmers to Raise Hell Over Disappearing Fuel Subsidies

by Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge
January 9, 2024

German truckers joined farmers for a week of protests over a government plan to scrap tax breaks on diesel used in agriculture in order to ‘combat climate change,’ after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition announced plans last month to nix a car tax exemption for farming vehicles as well as diesel tax breaks.

Protesters in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin parked tractors and displayed signs such as ‘No farmer, no food, no future’.

The government announcement is part of a plan to try and fix a 17-billion-euro (US$18.6 billion) hole in Germany’s 2024 budget, AP reports.

Holy shít. German farmers and truckers are fed up and are now united against their government. This is Berlin right now:

pic.twitter.com/Qtf8aQJWuI

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 8, 2024

On Thursday, the government walked back part of the plan, announcing that while the car tax exemption would remain, cuts in diesel tax breaks would be staggered over three years. This did not calm German farmers, whose Association demanded a full reversal, and said it would move forward with a “week of action” starting Monday, in which farmers used tractors to block entry roads to highways early in the day.

There was disruption due to convoys of tractors in and around some cities, too. Production at a Volkswagen auto plant in Emden in northwestern Germany was stopped because access roads were blocked, preventing employees from getting to work, German news agency dpa reported.

Among demonstrations across the country, several hundred tractors and other vehicles gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

The protests are under scrutiny after a group of farmers on Thursday prevented Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck from disembarking a ferry in a small North Sea port as he returned from a personal trip to an offshore island. -AP

And of course, authorities are warning that ‘far-right groups and others could try and capitalize on the protests. (Maybe Russia too!?).



Germany’s budgetary changes included the controversial cuts, which was ‘required’ after the country’s highest court annulled an earlier decision to redirect nearly US$66 billion originally meant to mitigate fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in order to combat climate change and modernize the country.

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protesting farmers in Munich, Germany 2024-01-08

PA State Dept. of Agriculture Unlawfully Raids Amish Family Organic Farm, Seizing Food & Property, Shutting Down Operations

[TCTL editor’s note: Those of us who have purchased food from Miller’s Farm network over the years (many of us travelling from other states) know what a gift they are to a wide community who value pure foods (including raw milk) and value the care in growth and preparation of those foods. If food freedom is essential to you, please consider sending a donation or supporting them by writing to the state “authorities” involved in this raid.]

State Employees Search Amos Miller Farm, Seize Property

by The Lancaster Patriot Staff
January 4, 2023

Three Pennsylvania State Troopers and seven other individuals spent several hours inside a building on Amos Miller’s Lancaster County farm while conducting a search on Jan. 4, 2024, eventually leaving with multiple coolers containing Miller’s property.

Attempts were made by The Lancaster Patriot to enter the facility during the search, but a Pennsylvania State Trooper said, “we’re conducting a search warrant inside this building right now,” and told the reporter to leave the building until the search was completed.

The search was conducted by employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, with Pennsylvania State Police offering assistance as needed.

A search warrant was issued on Jan. 3, 2024, by Magisterial District Judge B. Denise Commins and included an affidavit of probable cause completed by Sheri Morris, Acting Bureau Director of Food Safety with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

The affidavit referenced incidents involving Miller’s products dating back to 2016, with the latest including the claim that on Dec. 19, 2023, Morris was informed “by the NY state Department of Health of a confirmed positive case of a foodborne pathogen (STEC – Shiga toxin producing E. Coli) in an underage individual” who had allegedly consumed products from Miller’s private buying club. On Dec. 28, 2023, Morris was allegedly notified about a similar incident in Michigan.

In the affidavit, Morris contends that Miller has not filed for applications from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture “for registration, licensing, or permitting under the pertinent Retail Food Facility Safety Act, Food Safety Act, or Milk Sanitation Laws.”

A report of seized property provided to Miller after the search was conducted listed 37 items, including sour cream, chocolate milk, ice cream, and eggnog.

A notice affixed to a walk-in cooler door stated that the food in the cooler “has been detained by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture pursuant to Section 5726(a) of the Food Safety Act.” The notice states that the food “may be adulterated or misbranded and shall be detained.” The notice states that it is “unlawful to remove the food from the premises or to dispose of it without approval of the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.”

Removal or disposal of “a detained or embargoed food article” is a criminal and civil offense.

The cooler contains hundreds of items and represents a large portion of Miller’s products.

Miller’s private buying club provides customers with sustainable alternatives to commercially produced food. In addition to serving customers who travel to his location, Miller also ships his products across the nation.

“They [his customers] don’t trust the large corporations,” Miller told The Lancaster Patriot in 2022. “It’s not sustainable. For some reason the government keeps endorsing the large corporations, and it can cause big trouble.”

Miller’s products include cheese, meat, eggs, and raw milk. His company website states that all food products “are only available to members who belong to our Private Association and are NOT available to the PUBLIC.” Miller’s products are not sold in grocery stores.

Looks like Amos Miller’s farm is being raided.

With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on?

A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex?

It’s shameful that it’s come to this. https://t.co/pWwjp6cgPh

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 4, 2024

U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) shared a post from The Lancaster Patriot on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) and commented in support of Miller.

“Looks like Amos Miller’s farm is being raided,” Massie said. “With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on? A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex? It’s shameful that it’s come to this.”

The post on X has garnered over 745,000 views in less than six hours, with many comments in support of Miller and food freedom, noting that Miller’s buyers knowingly purchase his raw products and accept any associated risks.

Miller’s attorney, Robert Barnes, released the following statement just hours after the search was conducted:

“Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer. They did so in a lawless manner, without appropriate authority, in violation of their own rules and regulations, despite never objecting to the prior resolutions reached with the federal government, and despite a complete failure by the state to even reach out to Amos’ known counsel, Robert Barnes. The state’s own rules require advance notice, reasonable time frames for inspections, and a showing of credentials, none of which occurred here. Instead, the state unlawfully obtained a search warrant, based on materially false statements in an affidavit by a high-ranking state official in an agency with a known grievance against independent farmers like Amos, and, after the raid and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, then illegally ordered detained every item of food in one of Amos Miller’s coolers, including buffalo meat not even subject to federal regulation. The detention order is patently illegal under Pennsylvania law. Despite the constant harassment, Amos will continue to do all he legally can to provide the food his members deeply need. Amos thanks you for your continued support at this critical time for food freedom in America.”

(This story has been updated.)

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From GiveSendGo Campaign page in support of Miller’s Farm:

Amos Miller’s Amish farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was raided on January 4, 2024. Under the watchful eye of Pennsylvania State Troopers, and the backing of a search warrant, agents of the state entered Amos’ property, spent hours inside his buildings, and then hauled off some of his products. The remaining products they are forbidding Amos from selling, effectively ending his business until further notice. As Amos fights this injustice, he needs to keep paying his employees and supporting the small farms that rely on Amos to sell their natural products. If you would like to help keep Amos in business, please consider a donation.

Also, if you live in Pennsylvania, please contact your State Representative and State Senator and ask them to pressure Dept. of Ag Secretary Russell Redding to rescind the food detainment order. If you are outside Pennsylvania, please consider contacting Redding directly (https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/about/executive_office/Pages/Russell-Redding.aspx)

For more on Amos Miller, visit: https://www.thelancasterpatriot.com/foodfreedom/

See Related:

‘We Farmers Need to Stand Together’: Feds Take Aim at Pennsylvania Organic Farmer

How to Produce the Healthiest Foods Imaginable

by Joseph Mercola
December 30, 2023



Connect with Dr. Joseph Mercola

Cover image credit: Pexels

Regenerative Agroecology: The Necessary Solution to Counter ‘Climate Change’

“The colonizing mentality sees nature as dead matter to be exploited and used. Colonizers do not see self-organisation. They do not see creativity. They just see control and profits while bringing disease and ill health, destroying the land, the soil, and the water.

False solutions, such as synthetic foods, involve a further separation from nature. But the separation between us and nature is the root of the problem.

We are now at a watershed between perpetuating the mechanistic model or choosing to live in harmony with nature and its regenerative and creative capacities. We need to bring life back into the soil. In the micro-organisms of the soil we find the life we cannot see, which is the basis of our health and the solution to the climate problem.

The real solution to the ecological and climate crisis does not lie in creating substitutes for food or expanding the industrial paradigm, but in scaling the initiatives all over the world that are already working on healing our connection with the Earth through care.”

by Dr. Vandana Shiva, President of Navdanya International
December 12, 2023

The industrial agriculture paradigm, which sees the world as a machine, and not as a self-organized living system, has created devastation on the planet, while contributing significantly to the issue of climate change. Navdanya International’s latest graphic report, ‘Regeneration is Life‘, presented at Cop 28 in Dubai, analyzes the actual causes at the root of climate change and highlights the true regenerative solutions against the false solutions proposed by polluters.

As pointed out in the report, the ecologically destructive practices of industrial agriculture account for 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), making the global food system one of the main culprits behind climate change and environmental degradation.

The fertilizer industry is responsible for more than a fifth of total estimated greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture systems worldwide. Factory farms are significant contributors to soil and water pollution. The FAO considers that livestock in CAFOs accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while some estimates put the figure above  30%.

Today, the majority of the industrialized and globalized food system is concentrated in the hands of a few companies. Five agrochemical companies hold a 55% monopoly over the $61.5 USD billion world seed market. In 2018, 61% of global seeds and pesticide production was owned by three mega-corporations. Four corporations hold a monopoly over global commodity food trade, and approximately 80% of the US beef market is controlled by only four firms. In 2018, seven firms dominated poultry, pigs, cattle, and aquaculture genetics, and made over $80 billion in sales.

But these very corporations are behind the push for synthetic and lab-made foods, with meat industry giants like Tyson foods, JBS, Cargill, Nestlé, and Maple Leaf Foods have invested up to $2.78 billion, in this new sector. Synthetic and lab-cultured foods are quickly becoming a next means to consolidate even more power and profit into the hands of a few food giants without holding them accountable to the consequences of the system they perpetuate.

The dominant corporate-sponsored narratives are now pushing for the reduction of complex ecological collapse, and climate change, into dualistic narratives around plant versus animal, instead of addressing the larger crisis of how current industrial practices are destroying the Earth’s ecosystems.

Acting as if the world were a machine undermines and ultimately destroys life processes and organic systems. In the European Union, for example, total numbers of all types of farmers fell from 14.4 million to 9.1 million between 2005 to 2020. Meaning that over 5 million small and medium-sized companies have had to shut down. Meanwhile, global biodiversity has decreased by an average of 69% since 1970.

The colonizing mentality sees nature as dead matter to be exploited and used. Colonizers do not see self-organisation. They do not see creativity. They just see control and profits while bringing disease and ill health, destroying the land, the soil, and the water.

False solutions, such as synthetic foods, involve a further separation from nature. But the separation between us and nature is the root of the problem.

We are now at a watershed between perpetuating the mechanistic model or choosing to live in harmony with nature and its regenerative and creative capacities. We need to bring life back into the soil. In the micro-organisms of the soil we find the life we cannot see, which is the basis of our health and the solution to the climate problem.

The real solution to the ecological and climate crisis does not lie in creating substitutes for food or expanding the industrial paradigm, but in scaling the initiatives all over the world that are already working on healing our connection with the Earth through care.

These solutions already exist and are being implemented by local, diverse food communities around the world. Showing us that it is possible to walk a path of living in harmony with nature. We are part of the Earth’s systems, our food is a continuum of health from the ecosystems of the earth. We are deeply and inherently interconnected.

Agroecological systems can improve soil health, reduce erosion and increase resilience against the impacts of climate change through biodiversity conservation.

Agroecology and organic farming also reduce the need for external inputs through integration of agroecosystem, increase crop diversification and soil management. By increasing carbon sequestration, organic agriculture has a lower climate impact than industrial agriculture. Regenerative agroecology, if systemised, has the regenerative potential to reverse the course and serve as an important tool for climate change mitigation.

There are two ways of seeing ourselves and our relationship with the Earth. Either we think of ourselves as separate from Nature or as one with it. It only takes putting a seed in the ground to create this vision. And every additional community that lives ecologically, lives a better life. It is a very exciting time to be alive to regenerate life.

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Cover image credit: Pexels

How Big Business Uses Big Government to Rape You (And Why You Love It)

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
September 2, 2023



Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble

FROM 2016: You’ve probably heard all about Upton Sinclair’s 1906 expose of the turn-of-the-century American meatpacking industry and the Chicago stockyards…but everything you’ve heard about it is wrong. The book wasn’t an expose of the meatpackers, the legislation it inspired served to help the industry it sought to punish, and Sinclair himself hated the end result of his book, which aimed for the heart and hit the stomach by accident.

Join us for this month’s edition of the Film, Literature and the New World Order as we learn not to trust what’s on the label of mainline history.

FLASHBACK SHOW NOTES:

Big Government Has Come for This Small-Town Amish Farmer. Here’s How He’s Fighting Back.

Episode 227 – The Regulation Trap

Interview 1382 – The Social Media Regulation Psyop

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” – FLNWO #35

EPISODE SHOW NOTES:

The Jungle (Free Audiobook)

Upton Sinclair – Spartacus Schoolnet

History Brief: Teddy’s Food and Drug Regulation

Horse Meat, Hanford Leak, Obama’s Oscar

Genetic Fallacy: How Monsanto Silences Scientific Dissent

Why Government Regulation is a Lie (and what you can do about it)

Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism

Meat Packers Rape You – And You Love It

Meat Packing – Mises Wiki

How the Wholesome Meat Act Gives Us Less Wholesome Meat

Connect with The Corbett Report

Cover image credit: Angela_Yuriko_Smith

Glyphosate: Cancer and Other Health Concerns

by Stacy Malkan, U.S. Right to Know
July 21, 2023

Glyphosate, a synthetic herbicide patented in 1974 by the Monsanto Company and now manufactured and sold by many companies in hundreds of products, has been associated with cancer and many other health concerns discussed in this fact sheet. Glyphosate is best known as the active ingredient in Roundup-branded herbicides, and the herbicide used with “Roundup Ready” genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Herbicide tolerance is the most prevalent GMO trait engineered into food crops, with some 90% of corn and 94% of soybeans in the U.S. genetically engineered to tolerate herbicides, according to USDA data. A 2017 study found that Americans’ exposure to glyphosate grew by about 500 percent since Roundup Ready GMO crops were introduced in the U.S in 1996.

Why is Bayer taking glyphosate off the U.S. consumer market?

In July 2021, Monsanto owner Bayer AG said it would remove glyphosate-based herbicides from the U.S. consumer market by 2023 due to litigation. More than 100,000 people are suing Bayer alleging they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma from exposure to the company’s glyphosate herbicides, such as Roundup. We are posting documents released via discovery on our Monsanto Papers page.

Glyphosate will still be used in large quantities in agriculture in the U.S. Reformulated versions of Roundup brand herbicides without glyphosate will also remain on the market, but may contain other chemicals of concern. For example, one of the active ingredients in “Roundup for Lawns” is dicamba, a chemical that can damage non-target plants and crops.

How much glyphosate is used around the world?

According to a February 2016 study, glyphosate is the most widely used agricultural chemical: “In the U.S., no pesticide has come remotely close to such intensive and widespread use.” Findings include:

• Americans applied 1.8 million tons of glyphosate (or 1.6 billion kilograms) from its introduction in 1974 to 2014.
• Worldwide, 9.5 million tons (or 8.6 billion kilograms) of the chemical has been sprayed on fields —enough to spray nearly half a pound of Roundup on every cultivated acre of land in the world.
• Glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since Roundup Ready GMO crops (genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate) were introduced in the mid 1990s.

In the U.S., approximately 281 million pounds of glyphosate were applied to 298 million acres annually, on average, from 2012 to 2016, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The most glyphosate was applied to soybean (117.4 million pounds annually), corn (94.9 million pounds annually), and cotton (20 million pounds annually). Many citrus fruits, including grapefruit, oranges and lemons, and field crops such as soybeans, corn and cotton have high percentages of their acres treated with glyphosate.

What do scientists and health care providers say about glyphosate?

Many scientists, health care professionals and public interest groups have raised concern about the health impacts of glyphosate. Here are some key statements:

• Statement by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Reproductive and Environmental Health Committee: “We recommend that glyphosate exposure to populations should end with a full global phase out.” (2019)
• Essay in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health: “Is it time to reassess safety standards for glyphosate based herbicides?” (2017)
• Consensus statement in Environmental Health Journal: “Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures: a consensus statement” (2016)

Monsanto owner Bayer AG maintains that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides are safe when used as directed and do not cause cancer. “Glyphosate is one of the most studied herbicides in the world – and, like all crop protection products, it is subject to rigorous testing and oversight by regulatory authorities,” Bayer states on its website. “There is an extensive body of research on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides… that confirm that glyphosate and our glyphosate-based formulated products can be used safely and do not cause cancer.”

Internal Monsanto documents, investigative journalism and independent research have established that Monsanto used many tactics over decades to manipulate the scientific record on glyphosate and that regulatory agencies relied on poorly conducted studies and insufficient data.

How much glyphosate is in our bodies?

More than 80% of urine samples drawn from children and adults in a U.S. health study contained glyphosate, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Out of 2,310 urine samples taken from Americans intended to be representative of the population, CDC found that 1,885 contained detectable levels of glyphosate. Scientists described this finding as “disturbing” and “concerning.”

A 2017 study in JAMA found that Americans’ exposure to glyphosate increased approximately 500 percent since Roundup Ready GMO crops were introduced in 1996.

While it is clear that most Americans are being exposed to glyphosate, the literature on glyphosate exposure levels, especially in children, remains limited, according to a 2020 paper in Environmental Health. “Without more data collected in a standardized way, parsing out the potential relationship between glyphosate exposure and disease will not be possible,” the researchers concluded.

Why are corporate studies a problem?

Regulators in Europe and the United States, Canada and elsewhere have repeatedly affirmed the corporate assertions of glyphosate safety. In making determinations about safety, these regulators have relied in part on tests that are conducted by or for the companies that have not been published or peer reviewed.

The corporate studies have long been kept secret, even by regulators. But in Europe, litigation by a group of European Parliament lawmakers led to the release of dozens of such studies. More than 50 of those corporate studies were analyzed in 2021 by independent scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research, Department of Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, Armen Nersesyan and Siegfried Knasmueller.

Their goal was to determine if the industry studies comply with current international guidelines for chemical testing.  The researchers concluded that the bulk of the industry studies were outdated and did not meet current guidelines. An array of shortcomings and flaws were found in the studies, rendering most of them unreliable. Of the 53 studies submitted to regulators by the companies, only two were acceptable under current internationally recognized scientific standards, Knasmueller said.

Glyphosate and cancer: What do scientific and regulatory agencies say?

The scientific literature and regulatory conclusions regarding cancer links to glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides show a mix of findings, making the safety of the herbicide a hotly debated subject.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified  glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” after reviewing years of published and peer-reviewed scientific studies. The team of international scientists found there was a particular association between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

U.S. agencies: At the time of the IARC classification, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was conducting a registration review. The EPA’s Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC) issued a report in 2016 concluding that glyphosate was “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” at doses relevant to human health. In December 2016, the EPA convened a Scientific Advisory Panel to review the report; members were divided in their assessment of EPA’s work, with some finding the EPA erred in how it evaluated certain research. Additionally, the EPA’s Office of Research and Development determined that EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs had not followed proper protocols in its evaluation of glyphosate, and said the evidence could be deemed to support a “likely” carcinogenic or “suggestive” evidence of carcinogenicity classification. Nevertheless the EPA issued a draft report on glyphosate in December 2017 continuing to hold that the chemical is not likely to be carcinogenic. In April 2019, the EPA reaffirmed its position that glyphosate poses no risk to public health. But earlier that same month, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) reported links between glyphosate and cancer: “numerous studies reported risk ratios greater than one for associations between glyphosate exposure and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or multiple myeloma,” the report said.

The EPA issued an Interim Registration Review Decision in January 2020 with updated information about its position on glyphosate, continuing to hold the position that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer. In June 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected EPA’s decision. EPA withdrew its interim decision in September 2022 and the agency will start over in its review.

European Union: The European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency have said glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. A March 2017 report by environmental and consumer groups argued that regulators relied improperly on research that was directed and manipulated by the chemical industry. A 2019 study found that Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment report on glyphosate, which found no cancer risk, included sections of text that had been plagiarized from Monsanto studies. In February 2020, reports surfaced that 24 scientific studies submitted to the German regulators to prove the safety of glyphosate came from a large German laboratory that has been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing.

In June 2021, the European Union’s (EU) Assessment Group on Glyphosate (AGG) issued an 11,000-page draft report concluding that glyphosate is safe when used as directed and does not cause cancer. The finding is based in part on a dossier of roughly 1,500 studies submitted to European regulators by the “Glyphosate Renewal Group (GRG),” a collection of companies that includes Monsanto owner Bayer AG. The companies are seeking the renewal of the EU authorization of glyphosate. Current authorization in Europe expires in 2023.

WHO/FAO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues  determined in 2016 that glyphosate was unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet, but this finding was tarnished by conflict of interest concerns after it came to light that the chair and co-chair of the group also held leadership positions with the International Life Sciences Institute, a group funded in part by Monsanto and one of its lobbying organizations.

California OEHHA: In March 2017, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment confirmed it would add glyphosate to California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer. Monsanto sued to block the action but the case was dismissed. In a separate case, the court found that California could not require cancer warnings for products containing glyphosate. On June 12, 2018, a U.S. District Court denied the California Attorney General’s request for the court to reconsider the decision. The court found that California could only require commercial speech that disclosed “purely factual and uncontroversial information,” and the science surrounding glyphosate carcinogenicity was not proven.

Agricultural Health Study: A long-running U.S. government-backed prospective cohort study of farm families in Iowa and North Carolina has not found any connections between glyphosate use and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but the researchers reported that “among applicators in the highest exposure quartile, there was an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared with never users…” The most recent published update to the study was made public in late 2017.

What health problems are linked to glyphosate exposure?

Cancer

July 2023 study in Chemosphere: Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a systematic review of mechanistic studies on glyphosate and glyphosate-based formulations to evaluate them for the 10 key characteristics of cancer hazard identification. Data analysis revealed “strong evidence” for five of the key characteristics of carcinogenicity. An in-depth analyses of genotoxicity and endocrine disruption revealed “strong and consistent positive findings.” The researchers wrote, “Our findings strengthen the mechanistic evidence that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen and provide biological plausibility for previously reported cancer associations in humans, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

March 2023 Leukemia and Lymphoma journal: Pooled study of three case-control studies found statistically significant increased risk and confirmed an association between Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), including sub type hairy cell leukemia, and exposure to certain herbicides including glyphosate.

A February 2020 paper in Environmental Health presents a comprehensive review of chronic exposure animal carcinogenicity studies of glyphosate. It reports toxicologically plausible pathways for why glyphosate may cause various cancers in rodents.

In April 2019, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued its draft toxicological profile for  glyphosate, reporting an increased cancer risk from glyphosate exposures. Emails released via court proceedings show officials at EPA and Monsanto tried to hinder the ATSDR report. (The ATSDR profile is now final, and raises concerns about cancer.)

March 2019 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology analyzed data from more than 30,000 farmers and agricultural workers from studies done in France, Norway and the U.S., and reported links between glyphosate and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

February 2019 meta analysis in Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research reports a “compelling link” between glyphosate-based herbicides and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Three of the study authors were members of the EPA’s scientific advisory panel on glyphosate who have stated publicly that the EPA failed to follow proper scientific practices in its glyphosate assessment.

A January 2019 analysis in Environmental Sciences Europe argues that the U.S. EPA’s classification of glyphosate disregarded substantial scientific evidence of genotoxicity the negative impact on a cell’s genetic material) associated with weed killing products such as Roundup.

For an analysis released in July 2021, researchers from the University of Vienna analyzed 53 glyphosate studies submitted to regulators by pesticide companies found that most of the studies do not comply with modern international standards for scientific rigor, and lack the types of tests most able to detect cancer risks. The same researchers reported in November 2021 that only two of the 11 studies Monsanto submitted to EU regulators were deemed “reliable.”

In June 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected EPA’s decision that glyphosate likely poses no “unreasonable risk” to the environment and human health. In September 2022 the U.S. EPA withdrew its interim decision on glyphosate.

Endocrine disruption, fertility and reproductive concerns

July 2023 study in Environmental Pollution investigated the potential effects of low levels of glyphosate exposure from weaning to adult life in male Wistar rats on hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis function. Various changes suggest that glyphosate “may affect several steps of HPT axis regulation at the transcriptional level in an age-dependent manner and alter the morphometric parameters of the thyroid gland and TH synthesis, with potential repercussions in the TH-target organs.”

November 2022 paper in the Review of Economic Studies discusses glyphosate exposure and birth outcomes of populations surrounding GMO soy growing regions in Brazil. “We document a significant deterioration in birth outcomes for populations downstream from locations that are likely to have increased relatively more the use of glyphosate … average increase in glyphosate use in the sample during the 2000-2010 period led to an increase of 5% of the average in the infant mortality rate.”

October 2022 study in Environmental Health found glyphosate in 99% of pregnant women in a Midwestern cohort. Higher maternal levels in the first trimester were associated with lower birth weight, higher NICU admission risk. See also Indiana University School of Medicine news release.

In a March 2021 paper in Frontiers in Endocrinology, researchers that glyphosate is detected in the urine of residents of rural and urban environments and there is a correlation between “farmers’ exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and altered thyroid hormone levels or incidence of thyroid pathologies.”

October 2020 paper in Chemosphere journal is the first comprehensive review consolidating the mechanistic evidence on glyphosate as an endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC). The paper concludes that the world’s most widely used herbicide meets at least eight of the 10 key characteristics of EDCs, as proposed in an expert consensus statement published in 2020. See also article by USRTK.

July 2020 paper published in Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, Are glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides endocrine disruptors that alter female fertility?” summarizes the endocrine-disrupting effects of exposure to glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides at low or “environmentally relevant” doses in the female reproductive tissues. Data suggesting that, at low doses, glyphosate-based herbicides may have adverse effects on the female reproductive tract fertility are discussed.

June 2020 paper in Veterinary and Animal Science concludes that some ingredients of glyphosate-based herbicides appear to act as reproductive toxicants, having a wide range of effects on both the male and female reproductive systems, including endocrine disruption, tissue damage and dysfunction of gametogenesis.

June 2020 paper in Environmental Pollution finds that neonatal exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides decreased cell proliferation and altered the expression of molecules that control proliferation and development in the uterus, potentially affecting the female reproductive health of sheep.

July 2020 study in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology found indications that “chronic low-level exposure to glyphosate alters the ovarian proteome and may ultimately impact ovarian function.”

September 2020 study in Food and Chemical Toxicology reports that perinatal exposure to a glyphosate-based herbicide or glyphosate “disrupted critical hormonal and uterine molecular targets during the receptive state, possibly associated with the implantation failures.”

A 2018 ecological and population study conducted in Argentina found high concentrations of glyphosate in the soil and dust in agricultural areas that also reported higher rates of spontaneous abortion and congenital abnormalities in children, suggesting a link between environmental exposure to glyphosate and reproductive problems. No other relevant sources of pollution were identified.

A 2018 rat study by Argentinian researchers linked low-level perinatal glyphosate exposures to impaired female reproductive performance and congenital anomalies in the next generation of offspring.

A birth cohort study in Indiana published in 2017 – the first study of glyphosate exposure in US pregnant women using urine specimens as a direct measure of exposure – found detectable levels of glyphosate in more than 90% of the pregnant women tested and found the levels were significantly correlated with shortened pregnancy lengths.

2011 study in Reproductive Toxicology reported that glyphosate impairs male offspring reproductive development by disrupting gonadotropin expression.

2009 study in Toxicology found that glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines.

Liver disease

A 2023 prospective cohort study using data from the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) reports a strong association between glyphosate and AMPA levels in the urine of 4-year-old and 14-year-old Hispanic children and markers of damage in the liver indicative of future non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome. See also reporting in Inside Climate News.

A 2019 study based on urinary analysis for glyphosate reported that glyphosate excretion is significantly higher in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) who are considered to be at a higher risk of fibrosis progression and development to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

A 2017 study associated chronic, very low-level glyphosate exposures to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats. According to the researchers, the results “imply that chronic consumption of extremely low levels of a GBH formulation (Roundup), at admissible glyphosate-equivalent concentrations, are associated with marked alterations of the liver proteome and metabolome,” the biomarkers for NAFLD

Kidney disease

The American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded two Sri Lankan scientists, Drs. Channa Jayasumana and Sarath Gunatilake, the 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility for their work to “investigate a possible connection between glyphosate and chronic kidney disease under challenging circumstances.” The scientists reported that glyphosate plays a key role in transporting heavy metals to the kidneys of those drinking contaminated water, leading to high rates of chronic kidney disease in farming communities. See papers in SpringerPlus (2015), BMC Nephrology (2015), Environmental Health (2015), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2014).

The AAAS award to the scientists was suspended amidst a fierce opposition campaign by pesticide industry allies to undermine the work of the scientists. After a review, the AAAS reinstated the award.

Microbiome disruption

November 2020 paper in the Journal of Hazardous Materials reports that approximately 54 percent of species in the core of the human gut microbiome are “potentially sensitive” to glyphosate. With a “large proportion” of bacteria in the gut microbiome susceptible to glyphosate, the intake of glyphosate “may severely affect the composition of the human gut microbiome,” the authors said in their paper. See also reporting by USRTK.

A 2020 literature review of glyphosate’s effects on the gut microbiome concludes that, “glyphosate residues on food could cause dysbiosis, given that opportunistic pathogens are more resistant to glyphosate compared to commensal bacteria.” The paper continues, “Glyphosate may be a critical environmental trigger in the etiology of several disease states associated with dysbiosis, including celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Glyphosate exposure may also have consequences for mental health, including anxiety and depression, through alterations in the gut microbiome.”

A 2018 rat study conducted by the Ramazzini Institute reported that low-dose exposures to Roundup at levels considered safe significantly altered the gut microbiota in some of the rat pups.

Another 2018 study reported that higher levels of glyphosate administered to mice disrupted the gut microbiota and caused anxiety and depression-like behaviors.

Neurotoxicity

A large nationwide study published in the journal NeuroToxicology (December 2021) reports that “several neurotoxic pesticide exposures estimated using residential location were associated with statistically significant increased risk of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). These include the herbicides 2, 4-D and glyphosate, and the insecticides carbaryl and chlorpyrifos.” ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control.

Anemia

A July 2023 study in Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Taiwanese researchers analyzed data from the 2013-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of 1466 adults to explore the relationship between glyphosate exposure and erythrocyte profiles. The study found a “significant negative association between urinary glyphosate levels and hemoglobin and hematocrit … and provides “preliminary evidence of a plausible association between glyphosate exposure and anemia in a subset of the adult population in the United States.”

What are the environmental impacts of glyphosate?

Harm to bees and monarch butterflies

A 2023 study reports that glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees. See news coverage in Phys.org.

A 2018 study reported that glyphosate damaged the beneficial gut bacteria in honeybees and made them more prone to deadly infections.

Research from China suggests that honeybee larvae grew more slowly and died more often when exposed to glyphosate.

A 2015 study that found field-levels of exposure impaired the cognitive capacities of honeybees.

Research from 2017 correlated glyphosate use with reduced populations of monarch butterflies, possibly due to reductions in milkweed, the main food source for monarch butterflies.

Why are people suing Bayer over glyphosate?

More than 100,000 people have filed suit against Monsanto Company (now Bayer) alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and that Monsanto covered up the risks. As part of the discovery process, Monsanto has had to turn over millions of pages of internal records. See our Monsanto Papers page for documents released during the trials. The first three trials ended in large awards to plaintiffs for liability and damages, with juries ruling that Monsanto’s weed killer was a substantial contributing factor in causing them to develop NHL. Bayer is appealing the rulings. The U.S. Supreme Court has so far upheld the rulings against Bayer.

Monsanto influence over research

In March 2017, the federal court judge unsealed some internal Monsanto documents that raised new questions about Monsanto’s influence on the EPA process and about the research regulators rely on. The documents suggest that Monsanto’s long-standing claims about the safety of glyphosate and Roundup do not necessarily rely on sound science as the company asserts, but on efforts to manipulate the science.

More information about scientific interference

• Internal documents reveal pesticide industry science denial and manipulation: glyphosate case study, by Stacy Malkan et al. Excerpt from Merchants of Poison report (December 2022)
• Whistleblowers Expose Corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office, by Sharon Lerner (July 2021)
• The Monsanto Papers – Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption and One Man’s Search for Justice, by Carey Gillam (March 2021)
• The Monsanto Papers: Poisoning the Scientific Well, by Leemon McHenry (2018)
• Roundup litigation discovery documents: implications for public health and journal ethics, by Sheldon Krimsky and Carey Gillam (June 2018)
• Letter to Nature by Stéphane Horel and Stéphane Foucart (March 2018)

Why is desiccation of wheat and other crops a problem?

Some farmers use glyphosate on non-GMO crops such as wheat, barley, oats, and lentils to dry down the crop ahead of harvest in order to accelerate the harvest. This practice, known as desiccation, may be a significant source of dietary exposure to glyphosate.

How much glyphosate is in our food?

Despite having annual pesticide residue testing programs for more than 30 years, the USDA U.S. FDA mostly skipped testing food for glyphosate until after criticism from the Government Accountability Office in 2014. The USDA said it would start testing but then dropped the plan in 2017. Internal government documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show USDA had planned to start testing over 300 samples of corn syrup for glyphosate in April 2017; but the agency killed the project before it started. FDA began a limited testing program in 2016, but the effort was fraught with controversy and internal difficulties and the program was suspended in September 2016. The FDA did later resume limited testing.

One FDA chemist found alarming levels of glyphosate in many samples of U.S. honey, levels that were technically illegal because there have been no allowable levels established for honey by the EPA. Here is a recap of news about glyphosate found in food:

• October 2018: FDA issued its first-ever report showing the results of its glyphosate residue in food testing. The FDA said no residues of glyphosate were found in milk or eggs, but residues were found in 63.1 percent of corn samples and 67 percent of soybean samples, according to FDA data. The agency did not disclose in that report the findings of glyphosate in oatmeal or honey products.
• April 2018: internal FDA emails indicated the agency had trouble finding food sample without traces of glyphosate.
• Sept. 2016: FDA found glyphosate in US honey at double the levels allowed in the EU, and FDA tests confirm oatmeal and baby foods contain glyphosate.
• Nov. 2016: FDA chemist found glyphosate in honey in Iowa at 10X higher levels than allowed in EU. Also in November, independent testing by consumer group Food Democracy Now found glyphosate in Cheerios, oatmeal cookies, Ritz crackers and other popular brands at high levels.

What mixtures of glyphosate and other pesticides are in our food?

USDA data from 2016 shows detectable pesticide levels in 85% of more than 10,000 foods sampled, everything from mushrooms to grapes to green beans. The government says there are little to no health risks, but some scientists say there is little to no data to back up that claim. See Chemicals on our food: When ‘safe’ may not really be safe.

In 2020, a group of FDA scientists published a research paper examining pesticide residue data collected from 2009-2017. The scientists said: “In this study, results for over 56,000 human food samples collected and analyzed under the FDA pesticide residue monitoring program between fiscal years (FY) 2009 to 2017 were reviewed to identify trends not apparent in annual reports. The overwhelming majority of these samples, 98.0% of domestic and 90.9% of import human foods, were compliant with federal standards. Although herbicides may be more widely used, the 10 most frequently detected residues were insecticides and fungicides. On a yearly basis, the violation rate for imported samples is 3-5 times higher than the rate for domestic samples. The import violation rate increased over time, as did the number of residues detected. Targeted sampling of foods with higher commodity-specific violation rates appears to be a major contributor to the increased violation rate. Mismatches between US tolerances and international MRLs can lead to violations; this was especially marked for rice. Overall, the majority of violations are due to residues of pesticides not authorized for use in the US (lack of tolerances). While DDT continues to persist in the environment and was found in 2.2% of domestic samples and 0.6% of imported samples, 42.3% of DDT-positive samples were below the limit of quantitation. The trends and analyses identified in this paper may help FDA plan future sampling and continue to protect the food supply.”

Monsanto owner Bayer AG maintains that residues of glyphosate in food are not harmful at levels approved by the EPA. A 2021 paper written by longtime Bayer (former Monsanto) scientist John Vicini and published in Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety states that “dietary exposures to glyphosate are within established safe limits.”

For a complete history of the use of glyphosate, including regulatory action and inaction, scientific controversies, human and environmental impact data, read Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, winner of the 2018 Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. See also USRTK’s report on what internal corporate documents reveal about the tactics Monsanto and Bayer used to defend glyphosate. Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticides by Stacy Malkan, with Anna Lappe and Kendra Klein, PhD.

This fact sheet was originally written by Carey Gillam and is regularly updated by USRTK staff

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Vandana Shiva: Bill Gates and Silicon Valley Behind Push for ‘Farming Without Farmers, Food Without Farms’

On the latest episode of Russell Brand’s “Stay Free,” scholar, environmental activist and food sovereignty advocate Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., discussed food fascism, the power of “philanthropy,” digital enslavement and how people can free themselves from this system.

by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. , The Defender
August 2, 2023

“Human beings cannot have a relationship with nature, land and one another, it seems increasingly, without the intercedence of this corporate power,” comedian and political commentator Russell Brand told scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., on the latest episode of his “Stay Free” podcast.

Brand asked Shiva, a food sovereignty and environmental activist, to explain how this corporate takeover of nature happened.

Shiva said the privatization of land and resources under colonialism was the first step in transforming nature into “either a mine or a dump.”

Today, she said, privatization has become so entrenched that mega-corporation Cargill can own every chicken, chicken production facility, and every input needed to raise chickens, and then dump all of its waste into public rivers.

The situation we face today could not have happened, she said, without the criminalization of farmers — for which she held media organizations like The Guardian responsible because they attack farmers instead of the corporations.

“If the drivers are the corporations,” she said, “you have to have the guts to bite the corporations. You don’t target the victims. The farmers are victims of this system.”

Who are the real ‘food fascists’?

Brand asked Shiva why the global uprising of farmers — from Sri Lanka and India to Germany, England and the Netherlands — against the globalization of agriculture had come to be cast as a right-wing idea by the press.

Shiva said Mussolini himself defined fascism as “the convergence of economic and political power.” “Food fascism,” she said, “is the recent control over our food systems by giant corporations and the billionaires.”

Under colonialism, the British controlled the land, she said, but they didn’t control the food. The advent of agricultural industrialization, the green revolution and globalization made it possible for corporations to take control of food.

The call for “food sovereignty,” she said, “came as the call as opposite to the food dictatorship and food fascism.”

Now, she said, those people want to complete the separation of people from the land that began with colonialism.

Today, they want “farming without farmers.”

Being able to plant a seed, input love, knowledge and sun and produce food, “is the only truly independent production system and it’s that freedom they want to attack,” Shiva said, because they are threatened by it.

So they discredit farmers by calling them “fascists” and “right wing.”

“And anybody who facilitates that is essentially doing the work of these globalists,” she said, “they’re the fascists.”

How ‘philanthropy’ buys control

Today, people who talk about the disproportionate power and influence that billionaires like Bill Gates have over global agriculture and health are regarded as “conspiracy theorists,” Brand said.

He asked Shiva to explain Gates’ rise to power in plain language and with facts.

Shiva said people like Gates became wealthy through neoliberal trade liberalization, where trade in information, in the software and other forms of data Gates produced, went completely untaxed.

Then, she said, they used that money “philanthropically” to gain control of other sectors.

By donating massive sums of money to the global seed bank, to the World Health Organization and to media organizations such as The Guardian and the BBC, Gates and other billionaires took control of those institutions.

It even gives them the power to control governments, she said, who have been made desperate for money through indebtedness.

Gates and Silicon Valley, she said, “are very big players in the fake food future of farming without farmers, food without farms.” And they get journalists such as The Guardian’s George Monbiot to promote it.

Chasing enslavement

Shiva said this vision is built on “an imagined promise of an imagined future that we are never gonna arrive at. Because when you get there, you’ll find it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to them.”

The systems that support their vision of the future appear to offer us convenience, but in reality, she said, maintaining them takes all of our time.

Many indigenous people, she said, still have a lot of time to enjoy life “because they’re not chasing enslavement through consumption.”

Shiva wondered why people would want a “smart home,” where, for example, “the fridge will tell you your milk is getting old. How dumb are we getting that we can’t open the door of our fridge and know our milk is getting old?”

“All that is surveillance data,” she said.

And processing that data takes big servers. “The tiny bits of enslavement we are getting into is [producing] 4% of greenhouse gases, which is more than the aviation sector,” she said.

She added:

“So, not only is it a very foolish kind of slavery, it’s a huge ecological footprint on the planet. Yes. And we can’t afford it. So we have to learn to walk lightly.”

Data is the new oil

Brand said he was alarmed at the increasing pace of “desacralization” where people prioritize materialism over spirituality and lose control over their lives. He asked Shiva how she thought censorship, the inhibition of free speech and the ability of the media to shut down dialogue, fed into this process.

Shiva said it was part of “a system of total control,” that makes that control highly profitable.

What’s new in this system according to Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” is that today, human beings themselves have been turned into raw material whose data can be extracted.

“That is the capital of today. Big data is the new oil, and then it’s used to manipulate us,” she said, adding “Any system that allows you the awareness of your real freedom must be censored.”

The strange thing, Brand said, is that this system of technological domination was sold to people as a way of empowering them and giving them their freedom.

Technology should be a tool, she said, but it “has been elevated to a god” and those opposed to that transformation are discounted, through Orwellian doublespeak, as “right wing.”

But, Shiva said, the last few years have shown there are three things people cannot give up:

“First, your ability to know and distinguish between truth and untruth. … And not allow post-truth to be projected as truth and the truth speakers to be projected as conspirators.

“The second is our ability to relate to each other without the intervention of a surveillance state and surveillance corporation.

“And third, because food is what makes us, it becomes our blood, ourselves, our brain.”

In other words, Brand said:

“Speak freely. Tell the truth. Communicate freely. Grow your own food. Don’t eat things grown in labs. Don’t eat bugs. And don’t listen to people who want to promote it.”

Watch here:



This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense

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How Green Is Lab-Meat?

by Navdanya International
July 28, 2023

Synthetic foods are the next generation of ultra-processed foods made through the hyper-processing of industrially produced crops, a combination of processed and artificial ingredients and completely new ingredients produced through synthetic biology, (or so called ‘precision fermentation’), and cell-culturing. These products use a combination of gene editing used for the precision fermentation, industrial ingredients, and traditional commodity supply chains to create a product that only further entrenches our already highly problematic and destructive globalized food system.

Why lab-made meat and dairy is not an option:

• These false solutions will only reinforce and continue industrialization- which is the real culprit of the climate crisis. The issue of unsustainable food systems comes from the inherent unsustainability of the industrialization of all areas of food and agriculture. Whether that be through the industrial raising of animals through CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Farm Operations) where animals are force-fed industrially grown, pesticide-laced grains and soy, or the further industrialization of food now being made in a lab. These two things stem from the same corporations, the same mentality and the same denial of the industrial, globalized food systems devastation on the planet.

• Lab-cultured food is a fake solution that aims to replace products without challenging the power structures that  underlie the corporate, industrialized agricultural model. It moves attention away from the real solutions offered by the growing regenerative agriculture movement and disregards the role of small producers and food communities in shaping our food systems. Regenerative, agroecological farming practices have the potential to sequester 52 gigatons of carbon dioxide, as they can harvest 733- 3000 kg or more of carbon dioxide per hectare, per year from the atmosphere, equivalent to the amount needed to stay below the 2 degree centigrade range. By increasing carbon absorption, organic farming has a lower climate impact than industrial agriculture.

• The dichotomy does not stand as industrial CAFOs versus lab-meat. This false binary erases the role of agroecological small farmers, and pastoralists and treats them as if they were the same as industrial agriculture. Both CAFOs and lab-cultured meat concentrate power into the hands of a few. While agroecological systems are based on generations of ecological knowledge, local food culture and ecological resilience that support local food sovereignty.

• The true solution is agroecological systems that work in harmony with nature, that regenerate ecosystems and ensure the health and well-being of plants, animals and humans. Ecological systems based on integration of agroecosystems promote food sovereignty, food democracy. The real solution does not lie in creating substitutes for food, it lies in understanding the needs of the ecosystems we are embedded in and healing our connection with nature.

• The same circle of businessmen and corporations that pushed for the Green Revolution, and the industrialization of food systems, are the very actors behind these lab-made products. Actors such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and meat industry giants like Tyson foods, JBS, Cargill, Nestlé, and Maple Leaf Foods are behind the push for this new market where investment has now reached $2.78 billion. synthetic and lab-cultured foods are quickly becoming a next means to consolidate even more power and profit into the hands of a few food giants without holding them accountable to the consequences of the system they perpetuate.

• Handing over control of our food to a handful of multinational companies only makes us more dependent on them, creating a fully integrated food and agricultural system, controlled by profit. This erodes our food sovereignty, and food security, while having potentially detrimental consequences on local food systems, and ecological systems. What is at risk is the final elimination of small farmers, of traditional agroecological practices, and traditional diets.  To follow through with the massification of lab-grown meat would mean the final, complete separation of food from nature.

• These products still rely on long-distance globalized supply chains, and derivatives of the industrial food system. For example, to run, these bioreactors require large amounts of nutrients for cells to grow and reproduce. Given the limited production of individual amino acid formulations suited for cell culture globally, one hope is to use industrially cultivated soy to derive the full amino acid profile necessary for cell growth. This would work to only further entrench the already destructive cultivation of soy. Therefore defining these products as environmentally friendly, and sustainable, is just a greenwashing ploy to profit off a new generation of environmentally conscious consumers who are growing critical of the grim realities of industrial food production.

• It is unlikely these products will be any healthier or safer to eat. These ultraprocessed foods are made from refined ingredients which means that they lack many of the nutrients found in traditional foods. Nutrients and fortifiers will need to be added as separate ingredients and cannot be absorbed as effectively as they would from whole foods, and can cause harmful interference with other nutrients. As a result our bodies may derive less health benefits from them and therefore they should not be part of a nutritious and environmentally friendly diet and should be classified as Junk Food.

• According to a report by the FAO, the complex process of cell-culturing also leaves many opportunities for contamination from toxic heavy metals, organic pollutants, cleaning products, toxic bacteria, additives and preservatives, left-over antibiotics, growth hormones or other chemical or material contaminates. The presence of any of these contaminants, whether individual or in combination, would pose serious food safety risks to consumers.

In the end, these “Frankenstein foods” dismantle our connection with nature and in doing so, they ignore the role of natural processes and the laws of ecology that are at the heart of real food production. By promoting the illusion that we live outside of nature’s ecological processes, this new technology will only serve to increase corporate control over food and health, accelerate the collapse of local food economies and further destroy food democracy. The real solution to the environmental, and health crises should be based on an active rejuvenation and regeneration of the planet by working with ecological processes through agroecological and regenerative farming practices.

Real food made through real farming is the direct result of a process of care for the land, animals, and fellow humans that celebrates the connection between food and life. It protects the life of all beings on Earth while also nourishing our health and wellbeing. Artificial food is a direct manifestation of years of food imperialism and colonization that has denied our diverse food knowledge, food cultures, and disregarded the biodiversity of the earth and its ecosystems.

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The Insidious Truth Behind Free School Meals

The UN is pushing for universal free school meals, but that level of control would be easily abused. 

by Kit Knightly, OffGuardian
July 25, 2023

There is a growing international campaign to institute free school meals all around the globe. On face of it this might seem like a great idea…

but in the New Normal age nothing is ever really free.

So, let’s unpack…

The campaign is being spear-headed by the UN-backed School Meals Coalition (SMC), whose self-proclaimed goal is “free school meals for every child by 2030” (for some reason they are obsessed with that date).

The SMC already has over 80 national governments signed up to its pledge,  with over 90 “partners” (including the Rockefeller Foundation), and these numbers are only likely to grow after their presentation at the UN’s World Food Summit earlier today.

At the same time, the Coalition is getting glowing press write-ups, like this one from The Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliot:

For the scheme to work, rich countries would find around one-third of the $6bn annual cost, with the rest found by the governments of low-income countries through their budgets or though innovative financing ideas such as debt for school meals swaps, under which countries would channel the savings from debt relief into school meals programmes. At a time when aid budgets are being cut, $2bn a year is small change for donor governments and represents just one day’s worth of annual subsidies to food producers. It is a small price to pay for something that could do so much good.

This agenda has been lurking in the shadows of UK politics for a while now, with Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana first pushing FSM to all primary kids back in the winter of 2022.

It feels weird to write sceptically about this, because, as  a self-proclaimed leftist for most of my life, free school meals is exactly the kind of policy I likely would have supported without question just a few short years ago…

…but those few years were Covid years, and they’ve taught us all a lot.

Firstly, and most importantly, its become increasingly apparent that any policy is only as fair as the people implementing it, and only as decent as the intention behind it, and, however superficially humane  this plan might sound, the practical impact would be to hand yet more control over to the same murderous, eugenicist state that very recently killed thousands with a lie.

Secondly, a monopoly is a monopoly – whether private or state-backed – and the moment a monopoly exists the freedom to choose is dead. Freedom of choice is always the first liberty to go, but never the last.

Consider, for a moment, exactly what free school meals means in a post-covid world still reeling from a deliberately created financial crisis and in the midst of a “Great Reset” transformation.

1) The cost of living is soaring, and many parents – working parents as well as unemployed – are simply not able to afford to heat their homes or feed their children.

2) “Covid” caused a huge spike in homeschooling in countries all around the world.

3) there is an on-going campaign to “revolutionize global food systems” by promoting eating insects, GMOs and lab-grown “meat”.

Let’s trace the point where all these policies intersect.

What are we looking at?

Essentially, free school meals can be used to…

a) counter the rise in homeschooling by effectively bribing or coercing struggling parents to keep their kids in school so they can be fed

b) condition children (and their parents) into accepting eating whatever the state chooses to provide – be it ‘healthy’ GM veganism, bug-burgers or lab-grown food paste

c) this conditioning will help to normalise a more general acceptance of these “foods”

And that’s just the passive phase of control. We can assume it won’t stop there because it never does.

Maybe  free school meals will one day be tied to accepting universal basic income payments, or conditional on  your digital ID or your social credit score.

Maybe only vaccinated children will qualify for free school meals.

I’m sure you see my point.

The unfortunate truth is that we live in an era of ever-increasing  – and anti-human – corporate/state overreach.

The food might be free in the financial sense of the word,  but there will most definitely be a price to pay.

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The Asinine Insanity of the ‘Climate Change’/C02 Hoax: Kill the Cows to Save the Earth!

by Gary D. Barnett
July 18, 2023

Sky Falling

“Experts Agree: Not only is the sky falling but we’re all going to die from global warming. SUVs are a major culprit, and have been contributing to rising sea levels according to climate expert, Chicken Little. Colleague, Algore, speaking during a blizzard, agreed with Little.”

~ The Daily Alarmist

I must preface my comments here with sane logic, so as to ward off the absurd idiots who have bought hook, line, and sinker, the madness of the mainstream media, the political class, the non-science ‘scientists,’ the fake environmental whackos, the evil UN, the illegitimate IPCC, and the staged marketing of the ever-pathetic rantings of the once teenage bimbo ignoramus, Greta Thunberg, about man’s normal activity destroying the ‘planet.’ It is just not so!

Yes, the climate on earth changes on a regular basis. Yes, extreme weather conditions are seemingly present more often than not considering the near past. Yes, warming and cooling takes place over time, and has for millions, (or billions) of years. Yes, particular humans, (government, malevolent ‘scientists,’ NGOs, and the military, among many other nefarious individuals and organizations) can manipulate weather to harm us, but no; driving an SUV cannot kill us all. I present this as a purposeful affront to the evil liars, propagandists, depopulation monsters, eugenists, and technocrats, who desire to rule the earth at the great expense of all common men and nature.

The latest absurdity, not new or unique in any way, is the plan of the Irish government to cull (kill) 200,000 healthy cows, claiming “they contribute to ‘climate change’ due to ‘carbon’ emissions.” Anyone who takes this nonsense seriously, or accepts and/or ignores it, is opening the gates to voluntary human extermination. To not be able to understand that both cows and humans eat, live, and expel C02, and to not see that there are eight times more humans than cows globally, why would anyone not grasp that killing humans would be, according to these mad enviro-fools, even more effective in their efforts to ‘save the planet’ than killing cows? Why not kill every animal, including large numbers of humans, if ‘saving the planet’ from farts is the main goal?

Humans not only expel more C02 than cows, but they consume vast amounts of energy, they drive cars, they fly on planes, they build factories that pollute, they mine, they create incredible mountains of plastic and garbage, they perpetuate wars that destroy the earth at unheard of levels, and they continue to outpace cows in population growth by extreme margins. Cows only breath and fart, so why kill these innocent animals; why not just go ahead and cut to the chase, and kill large swaths of humans, (the real plan) saving the soon to be endangered Bos taurus — bovine? (cow) Are you beginning to see the absurdity of this bogus ‘climate change’ bullshite? The nonsense swallowed up and believed by most all these ‘climate change’ pushing scum, expands the bounds of absurdity to astronomical levels.

It gets much worse. This incredibly harmful and idiotic plan by the very imbecilic Irish Department of Agriculture, and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency, will pay 5,000 euros ($5,622) for each cow killed. Keep in mind, that 200,000 cows makes up 0.02% of the total number of cows on earth. Is anyone stupid enough to consider this a legitimate fight against the fraudulent notion of ‘climate change?’ At that price, it would cost $1.125 billion just to pay the farmers for killing their animals. (At this price, to kill all cows on earth, would cost $5.525 trillion) But what about the cost to dispose of these animals, the huge amount of energy and pollution used to do so, the loss of food and dairy products, the supply reduction and obvious extreme price increases certain to come? How will these losses be made up, and how much increased energy will be required to fill this void?

I do realize that most might consider this a minor subject matter, but that would be a grave mistake on your part. The powers that be are not planning on stopping with the killing of animals; they are intent on total control over every aspect of your life, including what food you eat, where you are allowed to go, how much energy you are allowed to use, how much heat you will be allowed in winter to keep warm, how you spend your allotted currency units, (CBDCs) how much medical care you may be allowed, where you may live, and even control whether you may procreate or not.

Why not get to the meat (pun intended?) of this problem, and dispose of the lies and propaganda that consume this now ignorant, pathetic, and indifferent population. The weather is being controlled, it is greatly harming humanity and nature, and is causing an incredible amount of damage not only to this earth, but to every living thing on it. This is not, and never has been, the result of normal human behavior, but is due to mass manipulation of the weather by the ruling class of claimed ‘elites’, who have chosen to use false climate narratives to create mass fear in order to control all. This is the ultimate fake ’emergency’ being used to take over humanity.

Many factors are likely present concerning climate extremes, including, but not limited to, weather geoengineering by the State, graphene rain, directed energy, climate modification assault, heating the ionosphere using HAARP technology, cloud seeding, spraying our skies with metals and poisons through stratospheric aerosol injection, (chemtrails) and most assuredly, artificially creating and enhancing the destructive  nature of hurricanes and earthquakes. Certainly, there are other devastating manipulations of weather going on as well that are unknown at this time, as the military’s full technological potential is hidden, and far ahead of what is believed by most. In addition, releases of toxic chemicals, bioweapons, and the continuous poisoning of the earth’s land and water by deadly substances such as glyphosate, is continuously ongoing. Weather is now a major weapon against mankind, and is being used to monopolize all agriculture and food production, or planned lack thereof.

It is not just cows that will be targeted by these evil ‘climate change’ monsters, it is the entire human race. So to believe that killing cows will save anyone or this earth, is not only completely ludicrous, but a sign that this is only the start of a much broader assault on all of the proletariat herd. They may attempt to begin with the cattle, but if that atrocity is allowed to happen, you and your family will likely be next.

Carbon Dioxide (C02) is absolutely vital to the existence of man. Without it, everything on earth would die. Through the process of photosynthesis, leaves on trees and plants use the great energy of the sun in order to convert this C02 to feed the plants, causing life-sustaining oxygen to be produced so that all things can live and breathe. It is said that one large tree can produce by using expelled C02, enough oxygen supply to provide what is necessary for a full day for several people. Plants also store carbon dioxide to clean the air and reduce negative effects to the environment. This process is imperative for life to survive, as without it, oxygen would cease to be available. If carbon dioxide were to be eliminated, (net zero is the stupid term used) everything would die. Keep this in mind the next time you hear some ranting ‘climate change’ dreg advocating the killing of all our animals (including humans) to ‘save the planet.’

All that is needed to save this planet and everything on it, is the elimination of all rulers and governments! Think about that the next time you perpetuate your own destruction by choosing to vote to ‘elect’ a master, any master, to rule over and control you. It is better to cull politicians and save the cows.

“Almost all of history is an unbroken trail of one conspiracy after another. Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception.”

~ G. Edward Griffin

Reference links:

Irish government to cull 200,000 healthy cows to meet ‘climate goals’

Carbon Dioxide from breathing and farting is not a concern for ‘global warming’

Don’t blame cattle

World cattle numbers by year

Chemtrails: The Conspiracy Theory That Never Was

The power of one tree

Geoengineering Watch

HAARP and the Sky Heaters

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Cover image credit: ArtTower & LauraTara

Green Light for New Gene Editing Techniques: Threats and Corporate Interests Behind New Wave of GMOs

by Navdanya International
July 8, 2023

For the last few years, agribusiness and biotech giants have been quietly making changes to GMO regulation around the world, deepening and entrenching their monopolistic grip on the global food system.

Today the effects of this lobbying also reached Europe.

On July 5, 2023, the European Commission released a proposal to exclude a large part of the new GMOs, or organisms genetically modified through new genetic editing techniques, from existing GMO regulations that require traceability, labeling, and risk assessment for genetic engineering products. The new regulation considers plant products deriving from genetic editing, of “category 1″, or equivalent to those that “could have been achieved with classic techniques like seed selection and crossbreeding”.

Through this proposal, the products obtained with genetic editing can contain up to 20 different genetic modifications and would be considered “equivalent” to all conventional plants and products, without the need to explicitly declare their nature as genetically modified.

The European Union represents the last bastion against the imposition of these new technologies. Therefore, it is essential for environmental, ecological, and human health and safety to require that these new genetically modified organisms be labeled, and subjected to independent evaluations. Also meaning that their process of production, sale, and distribution be carefully regulated.

Second generation GMOs

Over the last five years, new gene-edited technologies, denominated under an alphabet of new acronyms, from NBTs (New Breeding Techniques), NGTs (New Genomic Techniques), and TEAs (Techniques of Assisted Evolution), have been silently dovetailing into different countries’ existing agricultural legislation to by-pass any existing regulations and safety checks set in place for GMOs.

The logic used around the world to justify the deregulation of what is nothing but a new generation of GMOs is based on statements coming from the influential biotechnology sector. According to them, these products obtained through genetic editing (including seeds, plants, microorganisms, and animals), are to be considered harmless as gene editing would allow them to mimic nature’s natural mechanisms of genetic evolution and reproduction, now only faster. According to the large agrotech companies operating in the sector, since these techniques do not involve the insertion of foreign DNA through transgenesis, they cannot be considered equivalent to the first generation of GMOs and can therefore be regulated like conventional crops, microorganisms, and animals.

A question of biosafety

As demonstrated by numerous independent studies, however, gene editing is not as accurate, safe, or sustainable as the industry claims. The process, considered as a whole, induces hundreds of unwanted mutations throughout the plant genome. This may affect multiple gene functions with unknown consequences to cell protein biochemistry and metabolic activity.

We have already seen how the promises of food security, sustainability, and adaptation to climate change which in the past justified the use of highly toxic chemicals, GMOs, and the unlimited expansion of monocultures, have been severely disregarded.

Considering the devastating consequences already caused by the industrial food system in terms of environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, climate destabilization, and the destruction of small rural economies, there is little reason to believe that the scenario will be different for new genetic editing techniques. Especially when the actors behind this push are the same ones who have fuelled an agricultural model of exploitation and ecological disaster for decades.

The exclusion of gene edited products from regulation, traceability, and labeling and the lack of independent research on their actual safety for human health and the environment, would leave consumers and farmers unaware of the type of GMOs released into nature, the risks associated with their spread and the ecological and/or health damage they can cause. Directly violating the precautionary principle to protect the rights of citizens, farmers, and of the environment.

Food sovereignty under attack by multinationals

This lack of transparency appears to serve to absolve manufacturers of any responsibility and represents a further attack on food sovereignty. Also understood as the fundamental right of people to healthy and safe food, produced by ecological methods and adequate information on the origin and production methods of food.

The lack of in-depth research on the safety, as well as the long-lasting effects of gene edited products on the environment, undermine this fundamental right and encourages the centralization of food systems to the detriment of local food systems.

A closer analysis is sufficient to bring out all the interests at stake in this very dangerous game. Indeed, the deregulation of gene editing around the world has opened the door to the advent of a new “bioeconomy,” which is a new method of economic production based on manipulating the genetic information of microbes, plants, and animals to “program biology” to make it more economically productive.

What is really at stake is a further process of corporate appropriation and control not only of our food system but of all living systems. In this new “bioeconomy,” the goal of biotech and agrotech companies is to make gene editing and biological engineering the main tool for producing and processing all natural material, reducing agribusiness production to an artificial system of exclusive patents and licensing.

“Organic” and “No GMO” labeling are thus likely to disappear in favor of more generic labels such as “healthy” or “sustainable,” regardless of the process used to create the product.

The deregulation of gene editing biotechnology is opening up huge new profit potential for the major players in global agriculture. Regardless of the regulatory definition that equates these products with conventional ones, companies continue to file hundreds of patents using these new technologies to further strengthen their control over food systems.

The advent of these new technologies is enabling companies to patent specific genomic sequences by circumventing the foundations of current biosafety regulations established by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol.

The real solutions to the climate and food crises

The agribusiness industry’s attempt to reduce the complexity, diversity, and richness of life forms to a mere matter of genetics, treating food and crops as mechanical products, only further endangers the world’s biodiversity, ecological systems, and people’s health.

The desire to control everything living, and the very constitution of living things, is an attack on diversity and life. Diversity is the basis of life on the planet and is the only antidote we have to create ecological, health, and climate resilience.

After centuries of dominance of a mechanistic, reductionist, and linear worldview, we should see that the solution to the multiple crises of the present cannot come from further manipulation or control of nature.

New gene editing technologies continue to shift attention away from the real alternatives that can drive ecological regeneration. The solutions lie in the creation of ecologically integrated systems based on biodiversity, care, and science that understands and respects the interconnections between life and nature.

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Cover image credit: dmncwndrlch & congerdesign

Now in Effect: Wyoming Law Expands Food Freedom Act, Opens Market to Small Egg and Dairy Producers 

by Mike Maharrey, Tenth Amendment Center
July 2, 2023

Cheyenne, Wyo. (July 2, 2023)  – Yesterday, a Wyoming law went into effect that will further increase food freedom in the state, and potentially alleviate some of the recent price inflation on eggs and dairy.

Sen. Tim Salazar and 10 fellow cosponsors introduced Senate Bill 102 (SF102) on Jan. 12. The new law expands the Wyoming Food Freedom Act to allow a “designated agent” to “facilitate sales transactions” in the marketing, transport, storage, or delivery of food and beverage products. Under previous law, producers could only sell directly to consumers.

The new law will also add eggs and dairy products to the foods that can be sold at farmer’s markets, farms, ranches, producer’s homes or offices, and the retail location of the third-party sellers.

The House passed SF102 by a 62-0 vote. The Senate approved the measure by a 30-1 vote. With Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature, the law went into effect on July 1.

Expanding the market for eggs and dairy could provide some relief for Wyoming residents struggling to deal with price inflation. The price of both eggs and milk has increased precipitously over the last year. Opening up the market to more producers and sellers could help the people of Wyoming to get some relief from the money-printing frenzy of recent years.

Wyoming Leads the Way

Wyoming was the first state to enact a comprehensive Food Freedom Act back in 2015. The law allows the sale of many foods and food products direct from the producer to the consumer without adhering to onerous state regulatory and licensing requirements. The expansive law even allows poultry farmers with fewer than 1,000 birds to sell chicken and turkey, along with products made from their birds outside of the regulatory system. It also authorizes the sale of raw milk, rabbit meat and most farm-raised fish.

In 2020, the state expanded food freedom to allow consumers to buy individual cuts of meat through herd-share agreements. The law is modeled on laws that allow the sale of raw milk in some states. Consumers pay the rancher a fee for a “share” in either an individual animal or a herd. In return, the consumer gets cuts of meat. A second expansion allows for the sale of “non-potentially hazardous” homemade foods to be sold in retail stores and restaurants. “Potentially-non hazardous foods are defined as ” food that does not require time or temperature control for safety and includes jams, uncut fruits and vegetables, pickled vegetables, hard candies, fudge, nut mixes, granola, dry soup mixes excluding meat-based soup mixes, coffee beans, popcorn and baked goods that do not include dairy or meat frosting or filling or other potentially hazardous frosting or filling.

Following Wyoming’s lead, North Dakota and Utah passed similar laws. In 2017, Maine enacted a law that gives local governments the authority to enact ordinances regulating local food distribution without state interference.

Food freedom laws not only open markets, expand consumer choice, and create opportunities for farmers and entrepreneurs; they take a step toward restoring the United States’ original political structure. Instead of top-down, centralized regulatory schemes, these laws encourage local control, and they can effectively nullify federal regulatory schemes in effect by hindering the enforcement of federal regulations.

Food freedom has flourished in these states with hundreds of local businesses sprouting up in recent years without a single report of foodborne illness.

Federal Control

While state law does not bind the FDA, the passage of food freedom laws creates an environment hostile to federal food regulation in those states. And because the state does not interfere with local food producers, that means it will not enforce FDA mandates either. Should the feds want to enforce food laws in states with food freedom laws, they have to do so by themselves.

As we’ve seen with marijuana and industrial hemp, a federal regulation becomes ineffective when states ignore it and pass laws encouraging the prohibited activity anyway. The federal government lacks the enforcement power necessary to maintain its ban, and people will willingly take on the small risk of federal sanctions if they know the state will not interfere. This increases when the state actively encourages “the market.”

Less restrictive food laws almost certainly have a similar impact on FDA regulation. They make it that much more difficult for the feds to enforce their will within the state.

While FDA apologists claim the agency only wants to protect consumers, in truth, federal regulations tend to benefit big companies and squeeze out family farms. In the name of safety, FDA regulations limit your ability to access local, fresh food.

For example, the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 mandates meat must be slaughtered and processed at a federally inspected slaughterhouse, or one inspected in a state with meat inspection laws at least as strict as federal requirements. Small slaughterhouses cannot meet the requirements. As a result, the meat processing industry went through massive consolidation. Since the passage of the act, the number of slaughterhouses dropped from more than 10,000 to less than 3,000. Today, instead of hundreds of companies processing meat, three corporations control virtually the entire industry.

This does not promote food safety. In fact, by concentrating meat processing in a few facilities, the likelihood of widespread contamination increases. A single sick cow can infect thousands of pounds of beef in one of these corporate slaughterhouses. In a more diversified, decentralized system, outbreaks generally remain limited to small regions. You never saw these nationwide recalls in the era of diversified meat processing.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) “directs FDA to build an integrated national food safety system in partnership with state and local authorities explicitly recognizing that all food safety agencies need to work in integrated ways to achieve public health goals.”

Essentially, this means dictating state food laws.

Constitutionally, food safety falls within the powers reserved to the states and the people. The feds have no authority to enforce food safety laws within the borders of a state. Food freedom laws undermine these federal regulatory schemes. Widespread adoption of food freedom, along with state and local refusal to enforce federal mandates, could make FDA regulations virtually impossible to enforce and nullify them in effect and practice.

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It’s Bird Flu Season in Russia (Time to Kill All the Chickens, for Public Health)

A poultry farm in Yaroslavl has been ordered to cull 800,000 chickens, as regions introduce arbitrary “public health” measures to stop the spread of “bird flu”

by Edward Slavsquat, Edward Slavsquat substack
May 25, 2023

On May 12, Russian media reported that an “infected” gull had been discovered near a pond in a village in Moscow Oblast.

What happened next was practically preordained.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin—the poster boy for New Normal Russia—issued a decree on May 18 imposing “quarantine” measures on 11 districts in the capital.

The order placed restrictions on public events where birds might be congregating, and also banned the transportation of feathered creatures in the aforementioned districts.

Of course, birds could always just, you know, fly into one of these “quarantined” districts, and spread their devilish flu, but that’s neither here nor there.

Moscow’s friendly mayor dreams of “genetic passports” by 2030
If you like UN Agenda 2030, you’ll love Moscow 2030!

Moscow is the trend-setter when it comes to enterprising public health policy in Russia, so of course other regions have been eager to follow suit with their own arbitrary bird flu edicts.

Kaliningrad was the first to play copy-cat.

Just hours after Sobyanin’s decree was published, Kaliningrad imposed its own “quarantine” on a 10km perimeter around another bird flu Ground Zero.

The restrictions, which will remain in place until August 1, included a ban on the “import and export of birds and hatching eggs, the relocation of birds, procurement and export of bird feed, as well as holding agricultural fairs, exhibitions, auctions and other events.”

A week later, the discovery of dead, flu-riddled gulls in Nizhny Novgorod prompted officials to introduce a 30-day quarantine in one of the region’s districts.

Health authorities “seized poultry within a radius of five kilometers [from where the dead gulls were found], and poultry farms in the region were transferred to enhanced security protocols.”

Locals were also advised to only buy poultry from “verified” sources—the good, factory-farmed corporate stuff; don’t even think about buying poultry from your unverified neighbor!

But confiscating all chickens in a 5km radius is amateur hour compared to the health-boosting measures adopted in Yaroslavl.

The Romanovskaya poultry farm in Yaroslavl has been instructed to cull its livestock, and destroy all animal products on its premises, following an alleged bird flu outbreak:

All birds, more than 800 thousand in total, will be killed … The destruction of the carcasses, along with poultry products (eggs), will be carried out via incineration at a specially designated site. […]

The poultry farm has not disclosed any details about the order. When a 76.RU correspondent tried to contact company representatives, they declined to comment.

“We are in quarantine. That’s all,” a receptionist said, before hanging up.

The region is a major agricultural hub, so there’s no reason to believe that this bird-liquidation will cause a shortage of poultry or eggs. But…it’s also 800,000 chickens?

Finally, like a bad omen, Tatarstan (which was arguably the most Virus Crazy region in Russia after Moscow/St. Petersburg) is already bracing for the bird flu apocalypse:

Please just stop. Please.

It was clear that the COVID grift was rapidly losing its potency when Virus Nanny Anna Popova announced an imminent wave of “Arcturus”.

How many waves of severe-sounding Greek letters and words are possible, before people stop paying attention? Or worse, starting asking questions?

Well, now Russia is sacrificing 800,000 chickens to the Global Health Gods.

By the way: Where did this scary outbreak of bird flu begin? Hard to say for sure, but China recorded the world’s first human death from the new and improved “H3N8 avian influenza strain” in mid-April.

The bird flu scam actually predates COVID by many years. In fact, many of the trusted experts who demanded large-scale chicken slaughter (for public health) later went on to become celebrated “coronavirus experts” who championed worldwide house arrest for the proles—resulting in another mass culling.

Have you ever heard of a psychopath named David Nabarro?

Let’s not deceive ourselves, friends. Global Biosecurity Theater is forever.

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Cover image credit: CDD20

Childhood Exposure to Glyphosate Linked to Liver Inflammation and Metabolic Disorder

by Sustainable Pulse
May 12, 2023

New research from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in the U.S. shows that childhood exposure to the world’s most widely used weed killer, glyphosate, is linked to liver inflammation and metabolic disorder in early adulthood, which could lead to liver cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease later in life.

The study of 480 mother-child duos from the Salinas Valley, California—a rich agricultural region that locals call “The World’s Salad bowl”—was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The researchers, led by Brenda Eskenazi, director of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Center for Environmental Research and Community Health (CERCH), examined the agricultural use of glyphosate near the homes of the mothers during pregnancy and in the children up to age 5 years; and also measured glyphosate and AMPA, a degradation product of glyphosate and amino-polyphosphonates, in their urine (collected from mothers during pregnancy and from children at ages 5, 14, and 18 years). They assessed liver and metabolic health in the children when they were 18 years old.

The authors reported that higher levels of glyphosate residue and AMPA in urine in childhood and adolescence were associated with higher risk of liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in young adulthood. In addition, the investigators found that agricultural glyphosate use near participants’ homes from birth and up through age five was associated with metabolic disorders at age 18. They reported that diet was likely a major source of glyphosate and AMPA exposure among study participants, as indicated by higher urinary glyphosate or AMPA concentrations among those adolescents who ate more cereal, fruits, vegetables, bread, and in general, carbohydrates.

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Glyphosate is used routinely on genetically modified crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat, as well as oats, legumes and other produce. It is also present in many lawn care products for home and commercial use.

The debate over the impact of glyphosate and AMPA on human health has been contentious. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports no evidence of human health risk. However, most previous glyphosate research has focused on glyphosate’s potential carcinogenicity. This is the first time that researchers have examined the potential connection between early life exposure to glyphosate—whose use has markedly increased over the past two decades—and metabolic and liver disease, both of which are increasing among children and young adults.

The impetus for this study came from Salinas physician Charles Limbach, who was alarmed by the growing number of local youths with liver and metabolic diseases. Dr. Limbach wondered if the increasing public exposure to glyphosate might be a factor. He teamed up with Paul J. Mills, a UC San Diego professor and author of a previous study showing an association between higher levels of glyphosate residue and AMPA in adults and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The two men then approached Professor Eskenazi, who is also the founder of the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), the longest running longitudinal birth cohort investigation on the health effects of pesticides and other environmental exposures among children in a farmworker community. The CHAMACOS researchers reached back into their “library” of frozen biological samples from mother and child dyads, along with more than 20 years of exposure data and health records.

“The study’s implications are troubling,” said Dr. Ana Maria Mora, a CERCH investigator and coauthor, “as the levels of the chemicals found in our study participants are within the range reported for the general U.S. population.”

Professor Eskenazi recommends that the use of glyphosate should be limited to essential use while further studies are conducted. “There’s no reason why anyone should be using glyphosate on their lawn,” she said. “It shouldn’t be sold over the counter in a nursery.”

The study published in Environmental Health Perspectives was funded by NIH, NIEHS, NIDA, and the EPA. Additional support came from The Solomon Dutka Fund in the New York Community Trust and The Westreich Foundation.

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Bill Gates’ Synthetic Fruit Coating: Even Organic Fruit Is Being Coated With This Stuff

Bill Gates Owns Synthetic Fruit Coating — What’s in It?

by Dr. Joseph Mercola
May 10, 2023



Story-at-a-Glance

Do you know what Apeel is? In an April 24, 2023, Twitter thread,¹ Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director at the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), lists the many patents associated with this mysterious synthetic fruit coating, which is even approved for use on produce certified as USDA Organic.

According to Apeel Sciences’ website,² Apeel is a plant-based protective coating that “helps the produce you love stay fresh for longer.” It retains moisture within the produce and keeps oxygen out, thereby slowing the spoilage rate.

Avocados, cucumbers, lemons and limes, mandarins, oranges, organic apples, grapefruit and mangos are listed as produce that are currently being treated with this coating.

Apeel-treated produce can be found in several large grocery chains in the U.S., including Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Harps Food and many others,^3,4 as well as stores in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland⁵ and Canada.⁶ As of October 2020, the company had also received regulatory approval in Kenya, Uganda, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador.⁷ Apeel-treated produce can be identified by looking for the following produce stickers.

Red Flags

One of the warning flags that makes me question the safety of this product is the fact that Apeel Sciences (a DBA or “doing business as” of aPEEL Technology Inc.) was founded with a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.⁸ That’s never a good sign. I can’t think of a single harmless product Gates has ever willingly poured his money into.

Other investors include the Rockefeller Foundation;⁹ the World Bank Group; Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe; and Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube¹⁰ (she stepped down in mid-February 2023¹¹). By May 2021, Apeel Sciences was valued at $1.1 billion.¹²

Apeel Science’s founder, James Rogers, Ph.D., is an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum (WEF). He’s also a WEF Young Global Leader. In 2018, Rogers stated his company would transition to using synthetic biology rather than extracting its ingredients from real food.

What’s more, Apeel Science’s founder, James Rogers, Ph.D., is an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum¹³ (WEF). Among the articles he has written for the WEF is one in which he hailed COVID lockdowns as a model for future action on climate change.¹⁴ In other words, climate lockdowns.

Rogers is also a WEF Young Global Leader¹⁵ — yet another red flag. And I’m not the only one questioning the motives behind this product. “Is [Apeel] another Gates/WEF plot to destroy our health? Or a distraction from worse plots?” Baden-Mayer asks.¹⁶

Is Apeel Part of President Biden’s GMO Agenda?

One of the first things that came to mind when I heard of Apeel is that it fits right into President Biden’s recently launched agenda to turn the U.S. food supply over to the biotechnology industry. I reviewed this agenda in “Executive Order Lays Foundation for Lab-Created Foods.”

In summary, Biden’s September 2022 “Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy”¹⁷ makes biotechnology a national priority across agencies and branches of government, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In late March 2023, Biden expanded on this premise in a “Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing” report.¹⁸ One of the specific goals listed in this report is “Reducing food waste by 50% by 2030.” Reducing food waste to combat climate change¹⁹ is also the premise upon which Apeel Sciences was founded, according to its website.²⁰

Further evidence that Apeel Sciences fits into Biden’s biotech-driven food agenda is its acquisition of ImpactVision, “a software company that uses AI and machine learning to track the chemical composition of food throughout its shelf life.”²¹ The company has also promised to “double down on technology” through other tech acquisitions.

While reducing food waste and making fresh produce last longer are certainly sane and worthy goals, the question is, how is this being done? Seeing how Apeel’s emergence broadly coincides with Biden’s official transition into biotech-led foods, can we trust that it’s a food-based product? Or is it biotech in disguise?

What Does Apeel’s GRAS Notice Tell Us?

According to Apeel Sciences:

“Apeel adds a little extra peel on produce to slow the rate of water loss and oxidation … That extra peel is completely edible, tasteless and safe to eat. A variety of plant feedstocks can be used to create our formulations, and luckily these ingredients exist in the peels, seeds and pulp of all fruits an vegetables …

We think of these materials as building blocks, restructuring them in a way that allows us to iterate on what nature created, making our solution into a coating that can be applied to produce. So while nature is our foundation and inspiration, innovation and technology are how we apply these ingredients …”

Apeel Sciences’ Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notice²² to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, submitted in October 2019, gives us a little more. The primary component of the coating is said to be a mixture of monoacylglycerides derived from grapeseed.

An earlier GRAS Notice,²³ filed in April 2016, further specifies that the two primary components of Apeel is 2,3-dihydroxypropyl palmitate and 1,3-dihydroxypropan-2-yl palmitate. (In this notice, the product is called “Edipeel,” but the website now refers to it as “Apeel,” like the company name.) According to the 2016 GRAS Notice No. 648:

“Monoacylglycerol derivatives are components of dietary fats commonly found in food and are also endogenously formed in the human body … It is well established and recognized that monoacylglycerides, the subject of the present GRAS assessment, are formed in the gastrointestinal tract from the generally accepted metabolic pathway for the breakdown of triglycerides (i.e., lipolysis).

The hydrolysis of triglycerides by lipases proceeds through the formation of monoacylglycerides (i.e., monoglycerides). The free fatty acids released can be further used for triglyceride synthesis.

Given the metabolic sequel described above, and by applying scientific procedures, it can be concluded that a mixture of monoacylglycerides would not pose any health hazards different from commonly consumed dietary oils derived from plants or animals.”

Toxic Residues

However, just because something is made from all-natural ingredients doesn’t mean the final product is perfectly safe. It depends on what you’ve done to those ingredients.

In this case, in Part 3 of the 2019 GRAS notice,²⁴ under Maximum Limit of Residues, we find that the grape seed oil that makes up the basis of this product contains residues of ethyl acetate, heptane and palladium, which are processing aids, as well as the heavy metals arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury.

According to Apeel, the levels of these toxic residues are either below levels deemed safe by the FDA, the EU and/or the Joint FAO/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). The following table lists the maximum daily exposure limits based on a maximum daily (90th percentile) intake of 218 milligrams per person per day.

While the levels indeed appear to be very low, I would argue that any exposure to toxic chemicals and metals is an unnecessary risk. To me, intentionally coating fresh, unadulterated foods with something that contains toxins, even if in minute amounts, only adds to the toxic burden. We’re already dealing with pesticide residues on conventional fruits and vegetables. This coating will simply lock those toxins in and add additional ones on top.

One of the biggest question marks is whether this coating can penetrate the peel, as the coating cannot be washed off. Can toxic risks be eliminated by peeling the produce, or is the flesh of the fruit or vegetable also contaminated with residues? We do not have the answer to that question, even though it’s one of the most important ones.

According to Apeel Sciences, the coating is “not expected” to penetrate beyond the peel into the fruit.²⁵ Not expected? That means they have no idea. They’re simply guessing.

More Open Questions

In Apeel Sciences’ 2019 GRAS notice, they referenced a 2017 EFSA review²⁶ of E471 (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids) but didn’t mention that this review warned about the possible presence of epichlorohydrin,²⁷ a carcinogen, in E471 manufactured using glycerol or glycidol as a starting material. Apeel uses monoglycerides of glycerol.

According to this review, “The panel considered that the presence of epichlorohydrin and/or glycidol in mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids (E 471) would need further assessment as their presence could raise a safety concern.” Palladium, cadmium and arsenic are also carcinogenic, so there are at least four different carcinogenic contaminants in this coating.

What’s more, a 2021 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) re-review²⁸ of monoacylglycerides found that “the potential exposure to toxic elements resulting from the consumption of E 471 could be substantial.” As a result, the review panel suggests it may be necessary to lower existing limits for arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury.

Apeel Plans to Switch to Synthetic Biology

Baden-Mayer also wonders whether Apeel’s coating is made with synthetic biology. Why else is Apeel Sciences listed as one of the best-funded synbio companies?²⁹ Don’t you have to produce synthetic biology products to be considered a synbio company?

In 2018, the Apeel founder himself also told Food Navigator that his company would soon transition to using synthetic biology rather than extracting its ingredients from real food.³⁰ So, even if they haven’t made that transition yet, this certainly suggests they intend to, eventually.

Apeel’s GRAS notice also leaves this door open, stating that “monoacylglycerides can be created by breaking down a triglyceride by removing two of its fatty acids or they can be manufactured synthetically.”

Finally, Apeel Sciences’ board of directors includes Vijay Pande,^31,32 an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Stanford, who also serves on the board of Scribe Therapeutics, a company specializing in CRISPR technology and protein engineering. Pande is also the founder of Globavir Biosciences, an infectious disease start-up.

So, it certainly appears as though Apeel Sciences is geared up to move into genetically engineered synthetic biology, if they haven’t made that leap already. The company is even directly connected to a company specializing in infectious disease therapeutics, and we now know there are efforts underway to turn foods into vaccine vectors.

Invisipeel — Another Type of Coating

As mentioned earlier, aPEEL Technology Inc. is producing the Apeel coating for fresh produce under the business name Apeel Sciences. But that’s not aPEEL’s only product.

In August 2015 — three years after the Gates Foundation launched Apeel Sciences with a $100,000 grant — the Gates Foundation committed nearly 10 times that amount, $985,161, to aPEEL Technology Inc., not Apeel Sciences, to develop a crop coating:³³

“… to extend the shelf-life of crops without refrigeration and protect them from being eaten by pests by developing a molecular camouflage that uses cutin from plant extracts to create an edible, ultrathin barrier on the crop surfaces.”

Cutin is a waxy polymer and a primary component of the plant cuticle. It covers all aerial surfaces of all plants. It’s insoluble and therefore has a waterproof quality. The Apeel product described in the GRAS applications filed by Apeel Sciences do not mention anything about cutin, so this is a different product.

According to Weston A. Price,³⁴ this product is called Invisipeel, and is applied by growers while the crop is still in the field. Apeel is applied after harvest once the produce is ripe. In short, we may be eating food that has been coated not just once but twice.

Is Apeel Just Another Trans Fat Alternative?

Aside from potentially toxic contaminants, others who have investigated Apeel have highlighted other problems and warn that monoglycerides and diglycerides are a “go-to replacement for deadly trans fats.”³⁵

In 2016, the FDA withdrew the GRAS status of trans fat as it was strongly linked to fatal heart attacks. Yet here we are again. Out with one toxic fat and in with another. The FDA ban doesn’t apply to mono- and diglycerides, even though they contain trans fat, because they’re classified as emulsifiers rather than lipids.

Mono- and diglycerides are byproducts from the processing of oil. In the case of Apeel, the monoacylglycerides are derived from grapeseed oil, which is loaded with polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), including the highly problematic linoleic acid, which I’m convinced is one of the primary drivers of chronic disease. You can learn more about this in “How Linoleic Acid Wrecks Your Health.”

So, basically, what we’re looking at here is a way to turn fruits and vegetables, known for their beneficial impacts on heart health, into a source of harmful emulsifiers that increase your risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke. This starts to feel even more diabolical when you consider that the Great Resetters of the world are pushing to replace meat and animal products with plant foods, which they are simultaneously making more toxic and less healthy.

Commonsense Ways to Make Produce Last Longer

As noted by Moms Across America, there are far safer, natural ways to extend the shelf life of your fruits and vegetables. Below are a few of their tips.³⁶ Additional suggestions can be found in Almanac.com’s fruit and vegetable storage guide.³⁷

“Take avocados for example … Once you bring them home and they get to their ‘sweet spot,’ you can store them in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can also freeze them whole, sliced, in chunks, or mashed. They will keep for three to six months.

Heavenly, succulent strawberries can be briefly soaked in a vinegar and water solution to be cleaned thoroughly. Let them dry completely, and store in a mason jar (with a paper towel at the bottom) in the refrigerator for three weeks or more. Sweet, colorful apples can be stored in a cool, humid place such as a basement, garage, or refrigerator for up to five months.”

I have also found that if you purchase avocados on sale you can select rock hard fruits and store them in the fridge for around one month. You only need to take them out of the fridge for around three days before they ripen.

It’s worth mentioning, in closing, that the best way to gauge the freshness of a fruit or vegetable is to inspect it visually. If it’s been sealed shut with a coating that delays the decay process, you can’t tell how long that produce has been sitting around.

What’s more, if the produce is coated before it’s ripe, will it ever fully ripen? Many fruits and vegetables are picked and shipped before they’re fully ripened. They ripen en route. This is one of the reasons why so many fruits are tasteless and don’t have the right texture. Will Apeel make this situation better or worse? Personally, I won’t be buying Apeel-treated produce, and if enough of us refuse to buy it, they’ll stop using it.

Modern industrial farming has created a food production model that is not only unhealthy, but unsustainable as well. The reliance on GMO-derived products and the toxic chemicals used alongside them are destroying the environment and the public’s health.

To combat the encroaching influence of big GMO companies, I encourage you to support farmers and businesses that practice organic, biodynamic and regenerative farming. This food production model benefits both humans and the environment because it:

• Rebuilds topsoil by sequestering atmospheric carbon above ground and below ground
• Protects water sources, runoff, and reduces water demand by increasing moisture in the soil
• Promotes nutrition and health through nutrient-dense, organic food
• Minimizes the risk of foodborne illnesses and drug-resistant disease by avoiding the use of industrial chemicals
• Restores damaged ecosystems through regenerative methods
• Helps local farmers by giving them larger profits compared to industrial counterparts

How can you play your part? The solution is actually quite simple — buy healthy, organic food. One of the best things you can do is to purchase your food from small-business farmers. To help you in your search, I recommend visiting these websites that point you to non-GMO food producers in your area:

Regenerative Farm Map

Eat Well Guide (United States and Canada)

Farm Match (United States)

Local Harvest (United States)

Weston A. Price Foundation (United States)

The Cornucopia Institute

Demeter USA

American Grassfed Association

I also urge you to support and donate to organizations like the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as they are leading the way to promoting regenerative agriculture and sustainable farming practices. By advocating the innovative campaigns of these organizations, you are contributing to the future of regenerative agriculture.

Sources and References

• ^1, 16 Twitter Alexis Baden-Mayer April 24, 2023
• ² Apeel.com
• ^3, 12, 21 CNBC May 11, 2021
• ^{4, 9, 25, 32, 36} Moms Across America April 28, 2023
• ^5, 7 Bloomberg October 27, 2020 (Archived)
• ⁶ The Western Journal April 20, 2023
• ⁸ ReFED Catalytic Case Study
• ¹⁰ CNBC August 18, 2021
• ¹¹ ABC News February 16, 2023
• ¹³ Weforum James Rogers Agenda Contributor
• ¹⁴ Weforum April 21, 2020
• ¹⁵ LinkedIn James Rogers Founder CEO Apeel Sciences, WEF Young Global Leader
• ¹⁷ White House Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology September 12, 2022
• ¹⁸ Bold Goals for US Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing March 2023
• ¹⁹ Apeel.com Food Waste: The Not So Obvious Solution to Climate Woes
• ²⁰ Apeel.com, What Is Apeel?
• ^22, 24 Apeel Sciences GRAS Notice No. 886
• ²³ Apeel Sciences GRAS Notice No. 648
• ²⁶ EFSA November 10, 2017; 15(11): e05045
• ²⁷ Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet Epichlorohydrin
• ²⁸ EFSA Journal November 8, 2021; 19(11): e06885
• ²⁹ BuiltIn April 15, 2022
• ³⁰ Food Navigator February 12, 2018
• ³¹ Apeel Sciences Board of Directors
• ³³ Gates Foundation Committed Grant to Apeel Technology Inc August 2015
• ³⁴ Weston A Price October 27, 2018
• ³⁵ DrAxe.com February 24, 2021
• ³⁷ Almanac.com Fruit and Vegetable Storage Guide

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Cover image credit: Anelka

Philippines Supreme Court Blocks Commercial Release of GMOs over Ecological Disaster Fears

by Sustainable Pulse
April 28, 2023

Genetically modified Golden Rice and Bt eggplant will remain off the market in the Philippines after the country’s Supreme Court (SC) issued a writ in favor of farmers and scientists who sought to stop the government from commercially releasing the products, Phil Star Global reported.In a session last Tuesday, the SC granted a writ of Kalikasan to MASIPAG and other petitioners against officials of the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Environment and Natural Resources, and Health as well as the Bureau of Plant Industry, Philippine Rice Research Institute and University of the Philippines-Los Baños.

The writ of Kalikasan, a judicial mechanism in the Philippines, provides protection against ecological damage and disasters caused by human activities like mining.

The petitioners sought the issuance of the writ alongside a continuing mandamus before the SC last year for a temporary environmental protection order that mandates the DA to stop the commercial propagation of golden rice and issue biosafety permits for the commercial propagation of Bt Eggplant.

The SC has yet to disclose whether they also granted other requests in the petition including stopping the DA from commercially propagating the Golden Rice and the Bt Eggplant until proof of safety and compliance with legal requirements are presented.

The petitioners want all biosafety permits for Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant nullified and voided. They also sought independent risk and impact assessments, to secure prior and informed consent of farmers and indigenous peoples and to ensure liability mechanisms in case of damage as required by law.

While the SC has yet to release the full decision, a briefer on the case showed that the MASIPAG argued that the Golden Rice, which is patented to transnational agrochemical corporation Syngenta, is a rice variety that has been modified by inserting genes from maize and bacteria found in soil. The bacteria allows the plant to biosynthesize beta-carotene in the edible parts.

“They also argued that Bt Eggplant was designed so the plant would produce its own toxin to kill the fruit and shoot borer, which is one of several common pests that consume and damage eggplants,” the briefer added.

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Cover image credit: sasint

Contaminated Food Supply Contributing Cause to Live Blood Analysis Findings in Unvaccinated? Darkfield Blood Analysis on Grocery Meat Products

by Ana Maria Mihalcea, MD, PhD, Dr. Ana’s Newsletter
April 2, 2023

A colleague of mine, Dr. David Jernigan treats vaccine injured patients successfully in Tennessee. He called me after I posted the results on Infrared Spectroscopy and electrical conductivity of live blood and confirmed all of my findings. He shared with me, that a short time ago some family members were eating meat and got very ill from it. Dr. Jernigan had developed a method to capture the frequency from a vaccinated rubbery clot of a deceased person and has developed a scientific way for detecting that frequency. He checked his ill family member, who tested positive. Then he checked the meat they ate and it had the same frequency of the cadaver blood clot. Subsequently he went to his local grocery store and checked meat products, and both organic and inorganic beef meats had the same frequency emission. He wanted me to go buy meat at my grocery store and do live blood analysis on different products to confirm his findings.

I have been wondering why I have been seeing every unvaccinated person in my office with contaminated blood. I have also seen an increasing amount of people with persistent severe diarrhea, that is lasting for months, but turns out to be negative when tested for ova and parasites or stool cultures for bacteria. I was suspecting vaccine shedding, chemtrail spraying, nasal swabs, masks, and contamination through synthetic biology named “ Covid and Long Covid”. Many are saying that what we are seeing in the blood are parasites, but they are not. They are self assembly hydrogel based synthetic life forms, more akin to microplastics but biologically engineered.

This morning I went to a local grocery store and bought different meats that had some visible blood in the package that I could analyze. I was also curious about milk products. Here are my results:

This is a milk product:

It appears to me that our food supply – in particular animal products – is contaminated with similar structures we find in human blood. Dr. Jernigan did frequency testing on fruits and vegetables and did not get a positive signal. I encourage others to do the same research and replicate my findings. This would explain to me why I see these live blood structures in everyone. It does not matter if the products are organic or not.

The next step is to find a local source and maybe do live blood analysis on cows or pigs. If they are contaminated even if unvaccinated, then this may be environmental, possibly via geoengineering spraying. The implications for humanity are profound. I asked my colleague Dr. David Nixon in Australia to replicate my findings, and we will ask Matt Taylor in Ecuador and Shimon Yanowitz in Israel. We need to verify these findings around the world. I will continue working with Dr. Jernigan.

Connect with Dr. Ana Maria Mihalcea

Massive Dutch Farmer Uprising: Tens Of Thousands Stand Against WEF’s Attack on Small Farms

by Josh Sigurdson, World Alternative Media
March 13, 2023



Josh Sigurdson reports on the massive uprising in the Netherlands as tens of thousands of protesters and farmers gather in The Hague against World Economic Forum policies destroying the supply chain in the country with the second highest level of agricultural exports.

As thousands of farms are closed and land is given to immigrants while the supply chains of Europe, UK and the US collapse, the goal is to get rid of 30% of farms. They’re targeting nitrogen and fertilizer all while the supply chain crumbles alongside the energy grid and store shelves empty off.

This is all part of the tyrannical WEF agenda to bring in 15 Minute Cities and social credit/carbon credits.

Dutch protesters are not having it and a revolution is just beginning.

These major protests are also happening in several other European countries.

There should certainly be more gathered however. Every human being in the Netherlands and over 100 countries depend on food from Dutch farms. When will they stand up against the tyrants for their ability to eat and sustain themselves?

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Cover image credit: Gateway Pundit (Activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek hitched a ride to The Hague Saturday)

See related article at Gateway Pundit:

Tens of Thousands of Dutch Farmers Protest in The Hague: “Resist Much, Obey Little!”

The Attempted Destruction of Land-based Cultures

by Navdanya International
March 1, 2023

Real food is how our bodies are interconnected to the web of life on Earth. We are so deeply interconnected that our microbiome forms a continuous, reciprocal macro-organism with the microbiome of the soils. We are so connected that the debilitation of health of one aspect of our food web, goes on to have a direct effect on our health.

But since the advent of industrialization, we have been systematically displaced from the deep, inherent relationships we hold with our food. This systemic displacement of our relationships with the Earth, and with our food systems, has now resulted in multiple overlapping global emergencies: the ecological crisis, the health crisis, and livelihood crisis. These multiple emergencies are not separate, they are interconnected and they have their root in a growing dependence on a dysfunctional paradigm.

The industrial, globalized food system, based on toxic chemicals, monocultures and unsustainable globalized supply chains, represent a denial of the fact that our health is a continuum coming from the health of our planet. From the biodiversity in the soil, of our foods and in our gut microbiome. The destruction of biodiversity, thanks to industrial agriculture, is now contributing to disease and sickness for the Earth and her beings, including humans. The planet’s health and our health are inseparable.

Through the imposition of industrial systems small farmers and local food communities have deliberately been destroyed in favor of corporate power, and the health of people, the planet and food systems has been purposefully disregarded. Now the very corporations who have perpetuated the Earth’s destruction are attempting to try and convince us they hold the solutions to our multiple crises.

In order to erase the last remaining small farmers, corporate-sponsored narratives are now pushing for the reduction of complex ecological collapse, and climate change, into dualistic narratives around plant versus animal, instead of addressing the larger crisis of how current industrial practices are destroying the Earth’s ecosystems. In these false dichotomies animals are now being blamed instead of industrial systems as a whole, for the food system’s impact on climate and health.

This has been the case with the Brucellosis disease spreading through buffalos in Italy. A disease caused by the industrial CAFOs of buffalos, which is now being used as an excuse to push false solutions to climate change and food shortages. Small-scale farmers were forced to cull their animals due to the diseases caused by industrial production, effectively destroying the livelihoods of the real small-scale producers of mozzarella. Amid this destruction of real food, and real food culture, Fake Food companies, like German start-up company Formo, received record funding to produce lab ricotta and mozzarella. Allowing them to take advantage of the destruction already caused by the industrial system.

The integral, complex, and interconnected husbandry of animals in many traditional cultures around the world is now being lumped in with industrial animal production, effectively erasing the importance of these traditional land-based cultures. In these false climate narratives, animals have also been reduced to mere products for protein, that can simply be replaced by more efficient technologies such as lab-engineered products.

Climate reductionist narratives and their false solutions are effectively ignoring the multidimensional and essential roles animals can fill in diverse agroecosystems. It thus completely ignores our relationship with nature and creates a rift separating humans from nature and food from life. While it is a fact that all industrial production systems, whether for plants or animals, are heavily responsible for ecological collapse, agroecological and small-scale systems are not one in the same.

So, are we going to look to those who regard land, food, and life as extractible, commodifiable, profitable objects to solve the problem which stems from the fundamental disconnection to the Earth and Life? Or do we look to the generational stewards, the indigenous people who speak for their lands, the independent scientist evolving the science of agroecology, and the careful small farmer? Who are the ones that can teach us how to care for the Earth?

Sardinia as an Example Under Threat

One example of where this conflict is raging is the island of Sardinia. For centuries human settlements in Sardinia have been characterized by the presence of shepherds who have a long-standing tradition of co-existence and integration between human communities, animals and the surrounding ecosystem. Animals have always been part of community life, culture and traditions, especially in relation to food and agriculture.

In the Sardinian context, many define the local food systems as agro-pastoral systems, highlighting the inherent integration of pastoralism (e.g. traditional animal husbandry) and agricultural practices.  Moreover, Sardinia is an emblematic area of inquiry in terms of complex and genuine food systems in the Italian context. The region has the highest number of traditional shepherds and is world famous for its historic dairy culture and diversity in food products. Animals are intricately intertwined with local culture, traditional food and the islands’ identity, as many shepherds see themselves as custodians of the agro-pastoral history and tradition of their regions. Through their work and practices they maintain their language and typical food systems alive and pass their knowledge to the next generations.

In these systems shepherds consider their animals part of their family. They could not live without their animals and take care of them each and every day, and they see this relationship as a reciprocal exchange between humans, the environment and the animals.

Pastoral systems in Sardinia also maintain a high-degree of multifunctionality in agricultural practice and biodiversity cultivation. Small-scale shepherds integrate several agricultural activities in their work, such as cultivating their own hay for their animals, growing their own vegetables, organic olive oil production, organic wine production, with many having a variety of  animals and trees, plants in their farms.

Traditional systems also require the local wild biodiversity to thrive and co-exist with the animals and farming activity. Especially as animals are deeply integrated and are used for the maintenance of marginal, and wild territories. For example, sheep and goats that graze in the mountainous wild areas, where fire risk in the current hot summers is higher, help keep the ecosystem in balance. Small-scale shepherds are not deforesting to make space for their farms, but are integrating the animals in the wild environment, taking care of the risk of overgrazing through a small amount of animals for extensive areas.

Nonetheless, over the past fifty years, along with the modernization & industrialization processes in agriculture and livestock farming, the dairy and meat industry in Sardinia has grown to unprecedented rates, switching to intensive animal cultivation and large-scale export of local products (milk, dairy products, and meat). Replacing the well-structured, local community exchange networks and local food economies where shepherds would traditionally sell their products to their local communities, contributing to the local economy and providing fresh genuine food to the territory.

In this context many traditional small-scale shepherds and farmers are struggling to survive with many traditional shepherds and pastoral communities disappearing. Therefore, the Sardinian context stands as a lively battlefield between small-scale, traditional, multifunctional shepherds and farmers and large scale, industrialized farms and dairy producers.

The disappearance of these communities means much more than just the transition of farmers to other forms of work. It means a loss of deep cultural ties, intimate knowledge of the Sardinian territory. With their work so dependent on natural cycles and wild ecosystems, shepherds have acquired a profound and ancient knowledge of the territory.

They know their land more than anyone else and continue to inhabit inhospitable areas that would otherwise be abandoned. With their knowledge they are able to actively monitor changes in climate, water availability and the health of the soils. If agro-pastoral tradition is lost, so is the cultural heritage, identity, local economy and liveness of local communities in Sardinia. Real food and a crucial example of real sustainable practices that are being disregarded by current reductionist climate change solutions.

What about Fake Food

The case of fake food is emblematic, among the false solutions that are threatening land-based cultures and as a consequence of the false narrative that do not consider the huge difference between large scale animal farming in industrial food systems and the role of animals in ecological small-scale farming systems, like the ones in Sardinia.

Proponents of fake food claim that it provides a real solution to climate change, and environmental degradation, due to it not needing intensive water and land resources, while also addressing concerns over animal greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare in the admonished meat industry. However, the true purpose could not be further away from ending climate change or world hunger.

These technologies represent a new wave of the patenting logic that was first applied to seeds during the Green Revolution. By being able to now fully control the entire food supply chain, from the genetic manipulation of these fake foods, to their lab production, to the distribution chains already controlled by big agribusiness. The Earth and small farmers will no longer be needed, with the exception of the mass monocultures already controlled by agribusiness.

Not to mention that ultra-processed ‘plant-based’ fake, synthetic foods that rely on dangerous technical innovations such as synthetic biology, CRISPR-Cas9 gene manipulation, and new GMOs. These techniques involve reconfiguring the genetic material of an organism to create something entirely new, and not found in nature. Some companies are also investing in cell-based meat, grown from real animal cells. The result is a whole range of lab-grown fake meats, eggs, cheese, and dairy products swarming the market to ultimately replace animal products and alter modern diets.

These foods are now quickly making their way into global markets, as for example, the US government has recently opened the US market to synthetic meat, declaring it safe for human health and authorizing the Californian company Upside Foods to produce laboratory-made chicken meat. The first applications for authorization into the European market could start by this year.

As the agrifood industry is threatened by consumer apathy, big companies that stand to lose significant profits are trying to tap into a new market of environmentally aware consumers looking for alternatives. Hence, the promotion of these synthetic foods is nothing more than a clever way to reorient profits back to the same old companies by re-purposing the destructive technologies of the Green Revolution combined with new biotechnologies as a well-disguised ‘sustainable alternative’.

Real Food cultures

Although it might seem that the issue of fake food is far from the day by day struggles that shepard’s face in Sardinia, local communities, farmers and local movements are well aware of how it represents a present and future threat to their economy, and have been organising events and debates, also thanks to the intense information campaign that has been carried out at national level by civil society movements, including Navdanya International.

Small producers, farmers and shepherds of Sardinia, are very keen on explicitly manifesting what they think is healthy food. To them, real food is food their ancestors would recognize. The foods they’ve eaten since time immemorial. Foods coming from their land, and local cultivation practices. This is especially the case as local food systems have been built through well-structured local community networks, creating a local economy, where shepherds sell their products to local shops or markets or through well-established informal solidarity networks in their communities, contributing to local economy and providing fresh genuine food to the territory.

What is now at stake is the erasure of millennia old food cultures, which throughout time have created complex expressions of culture, territory, and identity all entwined with co-beneficial relationships between agricultural cultivation, animals, wild biodiversity, landscapes and human communities. 

We must see the recentering of economies to be local, circular, and regenerative, in line with ecological rhythms and boundaries that support these symbiotic relationships. Not the destruction of them for the sake of corporate profit and reductionist ideals. The defense of real food, and real food/ land-based cultures is now more important than ever, as it also represents the defense of the small farmer, and the defense of our relationship to life itself.

This  means stepping back onto the path of life which has sustained humanity over millennia where communities and cultures have co-evolved in their ways according to their climates, soils, and biodiversity, contributing to the diversity of food and farming systems, weaving biodiversity and cultural diversity symbiotically.

© Navdanya International

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Cover image credit: AdinaVoicu

Homo Chimericus: Chitinization, Through an Insect-Based Diet, in Synergy With Graphenization, of Food and Medicines, Is Generating a New Chimeric and Connected Human Organism

“Indeed, there are a number of studies that describe the customized bio-molecular corona surrounding the graphene oxide nanoflakes invading the human body. This is a protein corona that forms around the nano-materials when exposed to human biological fluids (blood, serum, plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, intestinal and gastric fluids, etc).

The term ‘protein corona’ was introduced in 2007 by Tommy Cedervall and his team in a study entitled Understanding the nanoparticle-protein corona using methods to quantify exchange rates and affinities of proteins for nanoparticles’. 

Today it is called ‘Bio-Molecular Crown’ and I call it – for what it is – a ‘Necro-Molecular Corona’.”

Homo chimericus: Chitinization, through an insect-based diet, in synergy with Graphenization, of food and medicines, is generating a new chimeric and connected human organism 

by Dominique Guillet, Xochipelli
January 31, 2023

Chapter 2 of “Orchestration of a Pandemic Famine”

Connect with Dominique Guillet — substack — website

Cover image based on creative commons work of Prawny & GDJ

Debunking Claims That Gene Editing Will Revolutionise Crop Breeding in Africa

“They remind us that older-style GM was also claimed to be precise until gene editing emerged – when GM advocates suddenly turned against older-style GM and admitted it wasn’t precise at all. “In reality,” the authors point out, “aspects of both genome editing and older techniques of genetic modification are imprecise and haphazard”.“

Article debunks claims that gene editing will revolutionise crop breeding in Africa

by GMWatch
January 24, 2023

Gene editing has captured the imagination of academics and professionals working on agricultural development in Africa. They claim the technology has the potential to revolutionise crop breeding, based on assertions of precision, cheapness and speed.

However, these claims are strongly challenged in a new peer-reviewed article by an international group of development experts led by Joeva Sean Rock, Professor of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK. The authors review the evidence and experience of older-style GM crops in Africa, as well as the research findings to date on gene editing. They conclude that unless hard lessons are learned from experience with first-generation GM crops, gene editing projects “are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past”.

The article is open access and written in an easy-to-understand style, and we recommend reading it in full.

We’ve heard it before

The authors find that the narratives around gene editing closely echo the earlier ones underpinning the introduction of older-style GM crops into Africa: “But the reality of GM crops in Africa has not lived up to the hype”. Problems include the introduction of seeds that demand costly inputs and restrictive crop management regimes, limited inclusion of African scientists and farmers in research and breeding programmes, public‒private partnerships (PPPs) that prioritise donor interests over farmer priorities, and inadequate evaluation of the compatibility between GM seed technologies and the farming systems they are supposed to enhance.

Precision? Not exactly

Regarding the supposed precision of gene editing compared with older-style GM techniques, the authors point out that gene editing tools like CRISPR are often used with older-style techniques and that gene editing can insert foreign DNA, either intentionally or unintentionally. In a withering swipe at those who claim gene editing is totally different from, and superior to, older-style GM, they state, “The effort to distinguish genome-edited organisms from GM crops, due to the claimed absence of transgenes, is a goal-oriented discursive strategy deployed by stakeholders who find it expedient to highlight technical differences between the two technologies rather than acknowledge their similarities, or overlaps between them.”

They remind us that older-style GM was also claimed to be precise until gene editing emerged – when GM advocates suddenly turned against older-style GM and admitted it wasn’t precise at all. “In reality,” the authors point out, “aspects of both genome editing and older techniques of genetic modification are imprecise and haphazard”.

Costs and patents

The authors state that genome editing is claimed to have minimal infrastructure requirements and low production costs, making it a widely accessible technology that “democratises” plant breeding. Interestingly, they show that the same claims were made for older-style GM crops as well. But what actually happened is that “Any hope of genetic modification serving as a low-barrier, decentralized technology was dashed by the rise of a highly concentrated biotech industry fortified by strict patent enforcement.” Today, four firms – Bayer-Monsanto, ChemChina-Syngenta, BASF and Corteva Agriscience – control over 65 per cent of the global seed market.

Attempts to make some GM crops accessible to African farmers have failed, say the authors: “Only one of these projects — Bt cowpea in Nigeria — has reached the stage of commercialization while several others… remain mired in scientific and regulatory delays”. The delays, the authors say, stem from public-private partnerships that prioritised the interests of multinational corporations over those of African scientists and farmers, relied upon unstable funding from international donors, and attempted to operate in countries that lacked permissive legal and regulatory policies regarding biotechnology.

Contrary to claims that gene editing will democratise plant breeding and make it widely accessible, the authors explain that the rapid pace of patenting of the technology “circumscribes the space available for future humanitarian and public-good ventures in genome editing”. They write, “The broad array of CRISPR-related patents held by Corteva Agriscience means that future ventures seeking to apply its proprietary techniques or constructs will need to enter into licensing agreements with the company.” Summarising the situation, they state, “The patenting trends underway could result in a concentration of corporate control similar to that which constrained the release of GM technology.”

Speed questioned

The third and final claim underpinning genome editing that the authors challenge is that it is faster, in terms of technical facility and the time it takes to get from lab to market. The authors recall that first-generation GM was also claimed to speed up plant breeding – “But with the advent of genome editing, GM is now being depicted as slow, clunky and cumbersome.” Some advocates claim that gene editing can halve the amount of time needed to complete the breeding process. They also hope that gene editing will escape regulation, further cutting the time needed to get crops to market.

However, the authors caution that these expectations might be unrealistic, due to lack of acceptance of GMOs by politicians and the public in many African countries.

Need to move beyond the genome

The authors conclude that “proponents of new technologies such as genome editing ought to temper big promises” and “move beyond the genome” to “prioritize the co-development of technologies with farmers, seek out non-patented material and acknowledge that seeds are a single component of highly complex agroecological and production systems. Otherwise, no matter how well funded or how valiant the effort, genome-editing projects are in grave danger of repeating mistakes of the past.”
—

The new article:
Rock JS et al (2023). Beyond the genome: Genetically modified crops in Africa and the implications for genome editing. Development and Change https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12750

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Cover image credit: Royalpixelz

Who is Behind the Great Food Reset?

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
January 23, 2023

Last week we looked at the ways that an engineered food crisis (or the perception of a crisis) is being used as an excuse to reengineer our food supply.

From cricket powder dumplings and bug burgers to GMOs and glyphosate to bioreactors and designer microbes to nutrigenomics and 3D printed material, the future of “food” is shaping up to be radically different from anything you’ve eaten before.

But in order to truly do something to derail the runaway train that is the Great Food Reset, we must first understand it. And in order to understand it, we have to know something about the people behind this agenda.

This week, we must answer the question: Who is Behind the Great Food Reset?

The Rockefeller Foundation

From the beginning of the so-called “Green Revolution” to the so-called “Gene Revolution,” the Rockefellers have been there, helping to move things along with their “philanthropic” donations.

They created the Mexican Agricultural Program, which was criticized from its very inception for trying to standardize and commercialize traditional Mexican farming practices in order to benefit of the Rockefellers and their corporate cronies.

They created the International Basic Economy Corporation in Brazil to industrialize that nation’s agricultural sector, with the explicit aim of hooking its farmers on expensive machinery and Rockefeller petroleum products and finding a sustainable business model in the process.

It was John D. Rockefeller III who, when sitting on the Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation, convinced his fellow oiligarchs to join the “Green Revolution” by founding the Intensive Agriculture District Programme in India, which exacerbated the disparity between rich feudal landowners and poor farming peasants.

And then of course there’s the Rockefeller’s work in Africa, which today takes the form of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. AGRA’s stated goal is to “elevate the single African voice” on the world stage. It all sounds nice and fuzzy until you learn that 200 organizations have come together to denounce the alliance and its activities. They claim that the group has not only “unequivocally failed in its mission” but has actually “harmed broader efforts to support African farmers.”

As you might imagine, the Rockefellers’ influence over the global agricultural sector is not simply a thing of the past. Their family’s foundation continues to wield an inordinate amount of power over what ends up on your dinner plate and how it gets there.

One ominous case in point: the foundation’s July 2020 report—released mere months into the scamdemic—”predicting” that the generated health crisis would lead to a very real food crisis and that America would face “a hunger and nutrition crisis unlike any this country has seen in generations.”

And their proposed solution to this crisis? Subsidies for small farmers? Development of community gardens? A new food sovereignty campaign encouraging people to get their hands dirty and start growing more food themselves?

Of course not. On the contrary, the Rockefeller Foundation wants a further centralization of control over the food supply, including “a new, integrated nutrition security system.” Yes, you read that right, folks: feeding the hungry is now a “nutrition security” problem that can only be solved by massive federal intervention in the food sector.

Oh, and the title of this report? “Reset the Table: Meeting the Moment to Transform the U.S. Food System.”

So, no, the Rockefeller Foundation is not done meddling with the food supply. In fact, they’re just getting started.

Bill Gates

Of course, he is literally invested in the food reset through his financing of the fake meat industry. Gates was, infamously, an important early backer of “Impossible Burger” and its lab-grown synthetic biology food substitute. He also provided capital to Impossible rival Beyond Meat . . . until Beyond’s stock began to crumble. Miraculously, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust was able to divest itself of its Beyond Meat stock right before the shares tanked in 2019. (The Gateses must be super-shrewd investors!)

But it gets worse. As PleaseStopTheRide.com has pointed out, Gates is also investing millions into “hacking your microbiome” to reengineer humans’ gut bacteria. You see, as it turns out, researchers are discovering that the microbiome—the mixture of bacteria, fungi and viruses that develop in the gut—can have serious effects on children’s physical and mental development, especially in the first year of life. And what does Gates do when he sees an important process that can help him to gain even further control over the human population. Hack it, naturally! But it’s for your own good, of course.

Also, as many people know by now, Bill Gates became the biggest owner of US farmland in 2021. Gee, I wonder why someone who’s so obsessed with completely reengineering the food supply and making us dependent on the lab-grown synthetic food substitutes he funds would be buying up farmland? A real head-scratcher, that one.

Speaking of head-scratchers, just why is Bill so passionate about pushing fake meat on the public, anyway? Why, to appease the weather gods, of course!

Speaking of fake meat . . .

World Economic Forum

But if by chance you were living under that rock, you wouldn’t know why it’s called the eat “ze” bugs agenda. Conspiracy realists, however, will be able to clue you in: it’s in (dis)honour of everyone’s favourite Bond villain reject, Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

Yes, the WEF is behind many different aspects of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the eat ze bugs agenda is no exception. Never forget, it was Schwab who popularized the “Great Reset” rebranding of the very old “New World Order” idea. And Schwab’s desire to get humans off of traditional sources of protein and nutrients is very much a part of that Great Reset plan.

A quick search of the word “insects” on the WEF website reveals that it has been regularly promoting such hard-hitting journalistic pieces as:

5 reasons why eating insects could reduce climate change

Why we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems

Insects could soon be appearing on restaurant menus in Europe

and

Good grub: why we might be eating insects soon

The fat cats are now unwinding after their hard week at Davos. You can bet they’re not snacking down on cricket croquette or mealmoth flambé . . . though they may expect you to.

But the Davos despots had better watch their backs! It turns out they have competition.

The EAT Forum (Davos for Food)

The EAT Forum is an organization cofounded by the Wellcome Trust (yes, that Wellcome Trust). It emerged from the Stockholm Food Forum, a by-invitation-only conference on the business, science and politics of food production that is sometimes billed as the “Davos for Food.”

Never heard of EAT? Its “About” page reads like the usual corporate whitewash: “EAT is a non-profit dedicated to transforming our global food system through sound science, impatient disruption and novel partnerships.”

But if the very idea of a “Davos for Food” puts you off your lunch and EAT founder and executive chairman Gunhild Stordalen gives you some strong Lieutenant Ilia vibes, then you might want to take a look at Dr. Joseph Mercola’s assessment of the group in his article on the global technocrat cabal:

The EAT Forum’s largest initiative is called FReSH, which aims to transform the food system as a whole. Project partners in this venture include Bayer, Cargill, Syngenta, Unilever and Google. EAT also collaborates with nearly 40 city governments in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America and Australia, and helps the Gates-funded United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) create updated dietary guidelines.

Given a pedigree like that, you’d expect that EAT Forum’s advisory board to be stacked with globalists, insiders and career supergophers for the world’s elite . . . and you’d be right!

Unsurprisingly, among its many initiatives is “Shifting Urban Diets,” a plan to “demonstrate how scientific targets for food systems can be operationalized in the city context” by adopting the Lancet’s “Planetary Health Diet,” a WEF-promoted response to climate change hysteria that says you should eat more vegetables to stop hurricanes . . . or something like that.

Yes, the EAT Forum may not have crossed your radar yet, but if its track record, ambition to become the “Davos for food” and connections to seemingly every globalist insider and crony corporation in the industrial food system indicate anything, we’ll be hearing a lot more about this group in the near future.

USAID

The Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) is, according to USAID’s website, “a seven-member, presidentially appointed advisory board to USAID established in 1975 under Title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, to ensure that USAID brings the assets of U.S. universities to bear on development challenges in agriculture and food security and supports their representation in USAID programming.”

Last year, BIFAD, in conjunction with “Feed the Future” (the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative), released a working paper titled “Systemic Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation.” The paper argues that:

. . . a perfect storm of circumstances in which supply chain issues, regional agricultural and nutrition challenges, the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and regional conflict have combined to form a looming food security crisis.

After shoehorning in some climate change hysteria for good measure, they call for—you guessed it—a complete transformation of the food supply and global agriculture!

Specifically, BIFAD’s “Systemic Change” subcommittee has been tasked with providing “evidence-based recommendations to accelerate inclusive systems change to achieve transformative climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes in agriculture, nutrition, and food systems.” The subcommittee’s proposals for achieving this ambitious goal include:

• linking “carbon markets” to “regenerative agriculture” (i.e., the financialization of nature that is all the rage in globalist circles these days);
• using ESG scores as a way to pressure companies into acquiescing to the vague, nebulous and ever-shifting demands of the Food Reset mafia;
• and, of course, “the promotion of insects as sustainable sources of proteins.”

The whole document is couched in the bland bureaucratic doublespeak of “equity,” “inclusion” and “sustainability.” Of course, it avoids delving too deeply into the specifics of this fundamental transformation of the food system that BIFAD is ostensibly investigating. But, if you know how to read between the lines, it isn’t hard to understand what the report is really saying. USAID’s “leverage” over developing countries—specifically referenced no less than 125 times—gives an insight into the Kissingerian food-as-a-weapon mentality that is the very basis of USAID and its mission. The entire enterprise reeks of a neocolonial landgrab masquerading as “philanthropy”—the kind of territorial taking that people in Africa and elsewhere have been warning about for decades.

What Can We Do?

But from this (admittedly incomplete) exploration we can derive a general understanding of the types of players that are behind this push to “transform the global food supply” and can accurately describe their methods and motivation. This is enough for us to start formulating our own plans for counteracting this agenda.

And that is the topic for next week. . . .

Connect with James Corbett — website — substack

Cover image credit: Prawny

Foreword From Dr. Vandana Shiva to the Global Witness Report “A Decade of Defiance: Ten Years of Reporting Land and Environmental Activism Worldwide”

by Vandana Shiva, Navdanya International
sourced from Navdanya International; cover image credit: Global Witness
December 15, 2022

I could tell you that, around the world, three people are killed every week while trying to protect their land, their environment, from extractive forces. I could tell you that this has been going on for decades, with the numbers killed in recent years hitting over 200 each year. And I could tell you, as this report does, that a further 200 defenders were murdered in the last year alone. But these numbers are not made real until you hear some of the names of those who died.

Marcelo Chaves Ferreira. Sidinei Floriano Da Silva. José Santos López. Each of them a person loved by their family, their community. Jair Adán Roldán Morales. Efrén España. Eric Kibanja Bashekere. Each of them considered expendable for the sake of profit. Regilson Choc Cac. Ursa Bhima. Angel Rivas. Each killed defending not only their own treasured places, but the health of the planet which we all share.

It’s important to picture these victims as the real people they are. It’s easier for me. I have been surrounded by land and environmental defenders all my life, and indeed I am one of them. It started for me in the Garhwal Himalaya in India, where my father was a forest conservator and my mother a farmer. Industrial logging was destroying the ecosystem in which we as humans were intertwined. We knew, intimately, that the value of the Himalayan forest was not to be found in the price of its timber, but in the way its extraordinary, abundant diversity sustains all forms of life – not least our own. And so we put ourselves in the way of the commercial deforesters.

By doing so, we weren’t just putting ourselves in danger. We were confronting a whole viewpoint – a way of seeing nature as something not to be cherished and protected, but to be conquered and subdued. This is a viewpoint with its roots in the Western industrial revolutions of the 19th century, or even further back in the scientific theory of the Western so-called ‘Enlightenment’. It matters that this viewpoint originated in the West. As this report shows, nearly all of the murdered environmental and land defenders are from the Global South, and yet it is not the Global South that reaps the supposed economic ‘rewards’ of all this violence.

Climate activists hold up signs next to portraits of slain Philippine environmental defenders as they take part in climate justice protests on November 06, 2021 in Quezon city, Philippines. Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

The final, saddest truth is that this viewpoint has brought us to the brink of collapse. We are not just in a climate emergency. We are in the foothills of the sixth mass extinction, and these defenders are some of the few people standing in the way. They don’t just deserve protection for basic moral reasons. The future of our species, and our planet, depends on it.

That’s why it’s so important to support the call, made in this report by Global Witness, for real protections to be afforded those on the frontline of this ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. These are the people who understand, at the most fundamental level, how the fate of humanity is entwined in the fate of the natural places they are defending. It’s why they are prepared to risk everything to defend these places. And it’s why they, more than anyone, deserve protection.

That means national and supranational governments committing to report and investigate these murders, and ultimately to serve justice on the culprits. It means governments ensuring protections for defenders, including reporting and investigating their murders as a means to access justice. It means companies ensuring their operations do not cause harm. And of course it means all of us continuing to shine a light on these stories, not just to remember those who have fallen but to continue their urgent work by telling the world exactly why they are dead.

In 2021, 200 people were killed protecting their homes and their rights. I urge you to read all their names. To honour the dead with your attention. To get angry on their behalf, and then to act.

Featuring first-person testimony from defenders on four different continents, the report shows that:

• Between 2012 and 2021, 1733 defenders have been killed trying to protect their land and resources: that’s an average of one defender killed approximately every two days over ten years.

• Over half of the attacks over the 10-year period have taken place in just three countries – Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines.

• In 2021, 200 land and environmental defenders lost their lives – nearly four people a week. These lethal attacks continue to take place in the context of a wider range of threats against defenders who are being targeted by government, business and other non-state actors with violence, intimidation, smear campaigns and criminalisation. This is happening across every region of the world and in almost every sector.

• Mexico was the country with the highest recorded number of killings in 2021 (54), followed by Colombia (33) and Brazil (26).

• Over three-quarters of the attacks recorded in 2021 took place in Latin America. In Brazil, Peru and Venezuela, 78% of attacks took place in the Amazon.

• The research has also highlighted that Indigenous communities in particular face a disproportionate level of attacks – nearly 40% – even though they make up only 5% of the world’s population.

This post is also available in: Italian

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Cover image credit: Global Witness

What’s Really Driving Netherlands’ Plan to Shut Down 3,000 Farms?

The Dutch government said it plans to purchase and forcibly shut down up to 3,000 farms it deems “peak polluters” in order to cut ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions, but critics question the government’s motives.

by The Defender Staff
December 13, 2022

The Dutch government said it plans to purchase and forcibly shut down up to 3,000 farms it deems “peak polluters” in order to cut ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions in half by 2030, as required by EU environmental regulations.

Parliamentarian Johan Remkes, who has been negotiating with farmers for the government, said farmers have options — they can drastically innovate farming practices, shift to a different type of business, relocate or voluntarily stop farming.

Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, minister for nature and nitrogen policy, said the government will offer to purchase farms at more than 100% of their value, but if voluntary efforts fail, farmers will face forced buyouts.

The announcement follows months of farmer protests across the country against climate policies they say will force them to kill off livestock and will drive them out of business — policies that some argue also will drive up consumer food prices and contribute to the global hunger crisis.

During the protests, Dutch citizens expressed strong support for the farmers, adorning their homes and cars with upside-down Dutch flags and declaring their support in polling last summer.

The protests were accompanied by strong support for a new pro-farmers party.

Farmers are furious that the government is offering more lenient regulations to other top industrial polluters, which include the businesses Tata Steel, Schiphol airport, refineries owned by Shell, BP and Esso, Dow chemicals and industrial companies such as Olam Cacoa and Cargill Cacoa, according to The Guardian.

“For agricultural entrepreneurs, there will be a stopping scheme that will be as attractive as possible,” said van der Wal-Zeggelink in a series of parliamentary briefings, The Guardian reported. “For industrial peak polluters, we will get to work with a tailor-made approach and in tightening permits. After a year, we will see if this has achieved enough.”

Mark van den Oever, leader of a Dutch farmers’ political organization, Farmers Defence Force, said in response that if the government is serious that “600 fine farms” will be shut down, “then we will spring on the barricades.”

The Netherlands is one of the most intensely farmed countries in the EU. It has 1.1% of all of the farmland in the EU and produces 6% of the food. The agricultural sector emits an estimated 45% of greenhouse gases.

The new Dutch policy stems from a 2019 court ruling that the Netherlands had breached EU environmental standards, ordering it to cut nitrogen-compound pollution by 70-80%.

The Dutch government began implementing new rules on nitrogen activity on farmers that halted the expansion of dairy, pig and poultry operations.

In June, officials announced more plans to cut emissions. The Dutch Department for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality released a map showing which areas had to reduce emissions and by how much. In some areas, this meant 95% of farming activity must halt within a year.

Protesting farmers have been in talks with the government, but with no agreement.

Protecting nature? Or elite control of the food system?

Despite obvious impacts on farmer livelihood, a strong resistance movement and the argument that different policies could help Dutch farmers substantially reduce emissions, the government insists that buyouts must move forward to protect nature.

“Nature is under pressure, and we need to act swiftly to restore it,” Lisanne de Roos, a press officer for the minister for nature and nitrogen policy, told NBC News, echoing Remkes’ remarks that nature must be central to farmer negotiations.

Mainstream media has portrayed farmers as anti-environmentalists and conspiracy theorists. But farmers say the new policies are not simply about protecting nature.

Dutch farmer and national farmer organizer Erik Luiten told Nigel Farage:

“There are farmers who are literally living there for centuries … always working with nature, and all of a sudden now they have to disappear because of this ammonia. And the farmers are not against nature, never against nature. They have to live in nature and they … have to work with nature. But it’s unbelievable that … now they have to get away … so close to nature and farmers are not convinced that it is going to help nature. …

“Europe says you have to preserve nature. … The Dutch government only made nitrogen, oxygen and ammonia as the only … elements which will tell you if nature is well preserved, and that’s absolutely crazy.”

Farmers argue that more is at stake in the buyout than the future of Dutch farming.

Global bodies and programs, such as the World Bank’s Climate-Smart Agriculture and Protected Areas initiative, the European Commission and NGOs, like the World Wide Fund For Nature, that support this “agri-transition” are implementing a comprehensive policy targeting Dutch farmers, and farmers across the world, using “biodiversity” and “climate” protection as a pretext for taking land as part of a larger project to re-make agriculture, according to a recent report by The Grayzone.

The Sri Lankan government conducted a similar experiment earlier this year, eliminating nitrogen-based fertilizer, which led to a famine that toppled the government. The Irish government also warned farmers that they must cut emissions or face consequences.

Agricultural researcher, permaculturalist and author Christian Westbrook — also known as the “Ice Age Farmer” —  explained in an episode of “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” how the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have long pushed the idea of a so-called Green Revolution.

Westbrook warned that narratives crafted to appeal to “green consumers” disguise a more nefarious intent on the part of the global elite who, in fact, are in the process of launching a “hostile takeover” of the global food system.

The global elites have used their influence over multilateral institutions to propose a series of top-down technocratic transformations of the global food system that will consolidate their control over global agriculture and limit farmer autonomy in the name of protecting the planet from environmental and climate destruction.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) — a neo-liberal public-private partnership that seeks to “define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda” — has proposed that farmers embrace “climate-smart” methods to completely transform agriculture to “net-zero, nature positive food systems” by 2030.

Sieta van Keimpema, spokesperson for the Farmers Defence Force, discussed the links between the WEF and Dutch politicians with The Grayzone:

“Left-wing parties like Democrats 66 [that promise] we’ll be working towards reducing the cattle population by half … are very close to Klaus Schwab [WEF founder] …

“They go to Davos and don’t deny it. It’s a fact that the WEF is pushing legislation that isn’t decided in a democratic way.

“The farmers have seen what is happening with the World Economic Forum, with Bill Gates, etc. … that’s why they are so active …

“They know that what they are fighting is a very strong lobby of multinationals who really want to control food.”

What will the seized land be used for? 

Commenting on the farm expropriation, regenerative farmer Will Harris told The Defender:

“I’ve had great concerns for a long time about Bill Gates and other technocrats taking over land not knowing what to do with it [for ecological management], governments taking over land not knowing what to do with it, the Chinese government buying up land in this country.

“There are very few people left who actually know how to manage land who know how to keep natural cycles.”

Dutch activist Will Engel argued that land currently occupied by farms is strategically important to industry and housing and that the “nitrogen crisis” is being used to implement policies that will make a total reorganization of the Dutch landscape possible, the OffGuardian reported.

A Dutch environmental report indicates that the land will be used for housing for migrants and for high-income people who want to live closer to nature, The Grayzone reported.

Another possible plan proposes to build a new metropolis that encompasses parts of Holland, Germany and Belgium called the “Tristate-City,” to create unified green urban areas across Europe, “an organically green network metropol where urban and rural space remain in balance.”

Transitioning to regenerative farming ‘not quick and easy’ but it can be done 

People’s movements and civil society groups across the world have argued that industrial farming generates severe environmental impacts, but the U.N.-WEF vision of “precision agriculture,” genetic engineering, fewer farmers and farms and lab-made synthetic food — all of which consolidate corporate control over food and agriculture — should not be the alternative.

Although industrial agriculture uses substantial resources, small farmers feed most of the world.

“The scientific and just response to the nitrogen problem is to shift from fossil fuel chemical agriculture to biodiverse ecological agriculture and regenerative farming and to create transition strategies for farmers to shift to ecological agriculture, which regenerates soil nitrogen while making farmers free of harmful and costly chemicals,” according to Vandana Shiva.

“The unscientific, unjust and undemocratic response to the chemical industry-created nitrogen problem is to reduce farmers instead of reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers as is happening in the Netherlands,” she wrote.

She and others argue that policies should be created to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and make the chemical industry pay for nitrogen pollution, instead of criminalizing farmers trapped in a chemical treadmill by the industrial agriculture model.

We should reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and make the chemical industry pay for nitrogen pollution, instead of criminalizing farmers trapped in a chemical treadmill by the industrial agriculture model.https://t.co/nE3Q7JMohZ

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 12, 2022

Oxfam, in a July 6 press release, also criticized attempts to combat pollution by targeting farmers. According to the press release:

“Governments must stop making empty promises or creating more bureaucratic processes.

“Instead, they need to invest in small-scale food producers and food workers. They need to repurpose our global agriculture and food system to better serve the health of people, our planet, and our economies.”

Harris, who transitioned his fourth-generation family farm in Georgia from industrial to regenerative farming practices, commented on the Dutch proposal to shut down the farms, telling The Defender:

“This whole thing seems like such a knee-jerk reaction to me. It is really throwing the baby out with the bathwater kind of deal. It seems like it makes more sense to isolate the problem.”

Harris explained how he and others have made the transition from industrial to regenerative farming.

“What are the problems? What are the technologies that cause this problem? And then quit using technologies. That’s exactly what I did there.

“Is it quick and easy? No, it’s not. Can it be done? Yes. There are those of us that have figured it out — how to do it without the damaging technologies. And we are producing really good food in a really healthy way in a manner that is perpetual and resilient and kind to the earth and kind to the rural communities.

“I think if those Dutch farmers were given the chance to convert to a holistic land management system … restart the science of nature to produce abundance, getting it processed and marketed, it could work.  People, consumers, still got to eat, and a lot of people might choose not to eat vegetable protein or crickets or whatever.”

Dutch farmers have signaled their willingness to transform their agricultural practices. Between 1990 and 2015, they reduced consumption of nitrogen fertilizer by 50% and animal excretion decreased by 40%.

“We have a million less cows than in 1991, when [the global environmental treaty] Natura 2000 came … We already reduced 70 percent of emissions,” according to Sieta.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

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They Created “75% of All Chronic Disease” | Vandana Shiva on Big Food

by Russell Brand with Vandana Shiva
December 6, 2022



Vandana Shiva joined me to discuss & express her feeling on modern day farming techniques. Additionally how damaging it is for the environment and our health. #farming #billgates #health
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Follow Russell Brand  on Rumble https://rumble.com/russellbrand

Connect with Russell Brand

Connect with Vandana Shiva

See related:

Rewilding Food, Rewilding Our Mind & Rewilding the Earth

RFK, Jr. w/ Vandana Shiva: Farmers Standing in Fearlessness & Truth “Fighting for the Soil & Soul of India”

Vandana Shiva: Bill Gates & Other So-Called Philanthropists Are Eco-Criminals, Creating a Digital Dictatorship & Destroying the Very Fabric of Life

Vandana Shiva: Bill Gates Empires ‘Must Be Dismantled’

Vandana Shiva: Divide & Rule — The Plan of the 1% Is to Make You Disposable

GMO Mustard: An Unnecessary, Toxic, and Failed Technology

by Vandana Shiva, Navdanya International
November 10, 2022

Mustard is the colour of our spring — basant. It is the flavour, and aroma, of our foods. It is a warm massage for a baby, and the glow of our oil-lamps on Diwali. Mustard has been central to the cultural and food identity of the diverse cultures that make up India. Mustard was the colour of freedom during our freedom movement. India’s mustard cultures and seed freedom are being threatened by the Poison Cartel, and Bayer-Monsanto.

There is a desperate push for introducing GMO Mustard, which will be the first GM food crop introduced into India. The attempt was made in 2016 to 2017, but it failed. And now another attempt is being made. On the 3rd of October 2022, the Supreme Court told the government to maintain the status quo till a hearing on the introduction of GM mustard was completed.

The push for this GMO is anti-science and anti-democracy. GMO mustard approval is a handing over of our democratic institutions to the Poison Cartel.

Thanks to the case of Bt Cotton, we have already seen what GMO crops can do in terms of destruction. Farmers have been committing suicide because of debt due to the high cost of seeds. Since Bayer-Monsanto has been focused on extracting patent royalties, the price of seed has jumped 80,000%. They have extracted Rs 7000 crores as illegal royalties. Under Indian Patent law article 3j, Bayer-Monsanto does not have a patent on BT cotton seed, since the law does not allow patents on seeds, plants and animals. But they have been manipulating and attacking India’s courts to weaken article 3j, thus attacking our democratic and farmers rights. This article is the legal expression of the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumkam, or the Earth as one family.

For the poison cartel, there are no plants and animals with their own integrity. Life is a corporate “invention”. For Bayer-Monsanto GMO means God Move Over, we will now pretend to be creators of life to collect royalties and Lagaan. Patents and royalty collection is the endgame; GMOs are the excuse.

When the Competition Commission of India started an inquiry because 95% of the seed is controlled by Monsanto, Monsanto dragged the Competition Commission to court. The Monsanto and Bayer merger intensified the threat of monopoly over seed, the first link in the food chain. And when corporations get as big as Bayer-Monsanto, manipulating the courts and the government becomes very easy. If the Seed Price Control order is dismantled, and if the 3j article is removed, the GM mustard will fully become a Bayer-Monsanto mustard.

Risky Genetic Transformations

In other words, the basic patents on the GM Mustard technology, as well as agrichemical package, are all owned by Bayer, as the Glufosinate (commercially called “Basta”) to be used with the GM mustard is also a Bayer herbicide.

The gm crop is based on multiple genetic transformations, and introduction of genes from unrelated organisms. These include the barnase gene for male sterility, bar-star gene, bar gene for herbicide resistance to Glufosinate (Basta, Bayer’s herbicide analogous to Monsanto’s Glyphosate), TA29 for regulator, CaMV 35S, Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (as a viral promoter), AMV, Alfa-alfa Mosaic Virus (as a viral promoter), and Agrobacterium tumefaciens as Terminators.

The original Food and Environmental safety assessment of the plant reveals that the barstar gene is to be found in the leaves, stem and roots of the GMO Mustard, and the Barnase gene is found in various vegetative tissues. The Bar gene is also found in the leaves, oil and oilseeds of the new plant. These are proteins that are not present in traditional mustard varieties.

However, the plant (as food) has not been assessed for safety, in its expression of the “layered” Bar “Trans Gene”, that has been implanted into the GMO mustard. What is tested, is surrogate proteins expressed in E Coli Bacteria. Isolated proteins expressed in bacteria are not equivalent to transgenes expressed in plants, which are much more complex organisms. Instead of testing for difference, a false assertion is dictated — that the two are equivalent.

The assessment also casually states, on page 63, “The data showed that the Barnase expression levels are below the detection level and yet the expression level is sufficient to create the male sterility trait”. As it is the expression of the trait that makes the difference in living systems, it is this trait that needs to be assessed in transgenic mustard as food.

Barnase is an enzyme that breaks down RNA indiscriminately and is known to be an extremely potent cell poison. Traces of barnase have been found to be toxic to rat’s kidneys and to human cell linings (Ilinskaya and Vamvaka, 1997; Prior et. Al., 1996).

The Barnase enzyme is also inhibited by the barstar protein. Both are produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. In the soil bacteria, these enzymes are bound, so barnase can do no harm. But when present in the plant, and when it is secreted from the cell, it is no longer bound and is thus harmful to other cells. It is exactly this harm that has not been scientifically assessed.

Additionally, there have been no official tests done on the safety of viral promoters.This is especially concerning as the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, for example, is notoriously unstable (Ho, Ryan and Cummins, 1999). The CaMV 35S promoter taken from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus is a DNA sequence used in commercial GMO crops for almost twenty years. It is also a classic example of how DNA can still reveal unexpected functions, even decades after discovery or use in a GM crop. The CaMV 35S DNA is described in every application for commercial use as a simple DNA “promoter” (as in, an “on” switch for gene expression). In 1999, however, the CaMV 35S “promoter” was found to encode a recombinational hotspot, meaning implanted genes were more likely to be unstable, resulting in likely horizontal gene transfer (Kohli et al., 1999). In 2011, it was found to produce massive quantities of small RNAs. These RNAs probably function as decoys to neutralize the plant immune system (Blevins et al., 2011). One year later still, regulators found these plants to contain an overlapping viral gene whose functions are still being elucidated (Podevin and du Jardin, 2012).

It is important to note that when first released in 2002, Pro-Agro’s (Bayer) application for the approval of commercial planting of GM mustard, based on the same transformations, was rejected by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).

The risk of GM Mustard is not necessary

Besides the instability and clear risks of the genetic transformations, there are many other risks associated with GMO-Mustard. With its Herbicide Resistant Trait, the new GMO will displace native mustard varieties, just like GMO-Cotton displaced Desi-Cotton in India. Genetic contamination from GM mustard will also be irrevocable and irreversible. Furthermore, mustard is grown as a mixture, with chana and wheat. Agrichemical spraying will also destroy the biodiversity of associated crops.

The sterility trait is introduced to produce non-renewable seeds. Just as has previously been the case, farmers will have to re-buy seeds every year, leading them to be trapped in debt, and be driven to suicide like the farmers growing GMO Bt cotton. An unnecessary violence, as in India, there already exists a diversity of local varieties of mustard coupled with traditional farming practices which give more yield without chemicals. The push for this GMO is therefore anti-science, especially as the main justification given for the necessity to genetic engineer with herbicide resistant traits, to resist Bayer’s herbicide, is to increase yields and curve the dependency on edible oil imports. The GMO mustard has lower yields than non-GMO alternatives available in the country. The government itself has admitted in the Supreme Court that increased yields are not being claimed, yet in the media this is the false claim being spun.

HT hybrid mustard DMH 11 has failed the first criteria of a test risk protocol of a GM crop, of whether the GM Crop is required in the first place. The answer in “No” based on the admission of the Union of India itself in their ‘Reply’ Affidavit in the Supreme Court. They said: “No such claim has been made in any of the submitted documents that DMH 11 out-performs Non-GMO hybrids. The comparison has only been made between hybrid DMH 11, NC (national Check) Varuna and the appropriate ZC (zonal checks) — MSY of 2670 Kg/ha has been recorded over three years of BRL trials which is 28% and 37% more than the NC & ZC respectively” (At 88, pg.56).

India can produce enough oilseeds that are diverse, healthy, safe, and culturally appropriate. In the 1990’s India had become self-sufficient in edible oils as a consequence of the conscious commitment to grow more oilseeds. The policy was called the “Yellow Revolution”, and it worked. In 1993-94 India was producing 97% of her requirements.

Import Manipulation

In 1998, the same year that Monsanto sneaked in its BT cotton, the multinational companies (MNC) in India manufactured a crisis to get indigenous oilseeds banned and dumped GMO soya oil on India by manipulating a drop on import duties. India had bound its import duties at 300% in the WTO. The United States lobby had soya oil import duties reduced to 45%. In the manipulated crisis of 1998, the duties were dropped to 0%. In addition, the soya bean was subsidized by $190/tonne by the US government, and Rs 15/kg by India. It is no wonder then that India was flooded with imports. It was not because of domestic scarcity, but because of manipulated prices, manipulated trade and manipulated policy .

At that time, the women of the slums of Delhi called me to say their children could not eat the food cooked in soya oil. They wanted the mustard oil back. So we organized the “Sarson Satyagraha” in 1998 and saved our mustard. But the imports kept increasing through dumping and manipulation of policy. Compared to 1.02 million tonnes edible oil imports in 1996-97, India’s imports doubled to 2.98 million tonnes in 1998-99, and then jumped to 5 million tonnes in 1999-2000.

Today we are importing more than 60% of our domestic requirements. And destroying our coconut, sesame, groundnut, safflower, niger, mustard, and linseed diversity. All for GMO soya which is destroying the Amazon, and palm oil which is destroying the Indonesian rainforests. This has directly caused Indian farmers to lose livelihoods, and health.

We can grow enough oilseeds to meet India’s needs. As the farmers organizations wrote in a letter to the Environment Minister, Anil Dave: “Oil seed production has taken a hit due to bad pricing/procurement support from the government, and inappropriate anti-farmer import policies adopted by the government. It is not because we are unable to produce enough or do not have the seeds or know how. If the pricing, procurement and import policies are made farmer friendly we assure you that we can produce all the mustard and other oil seeds the country needs.”

Today, the government of India is again being manipulated by the same interests that forced the edible oil imports on India, to now force GMO Mustard in the name of reducing import dependence.

The unscientific and corrupt approval for GMO Mustard is simultaneously an approval to 100 other crops that are undergoing trial. We stopped Bt Brinjal in 2010. There was a democratic consensus in India that we would not become victims of GMO foods. The 2020 decree by Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador aims to phase out GM corn and the herbicide glyphosate by 2024.

The decision about GMO Mustard is not merely a technological choice. It is about our  Seed Freedom and Food Freedom. Since GMO technology has been pushed primary to own the seed through patents to collect royalties, since such patents cannot be granted without dismantling the public interest and national interest built into our structures, laws and policies, GMO mustard is a recipe for the colonization of India by the Poison Cartel Bayer- Monsanto. If GMO mustard is approved, India as a free, democratic, sovereign country dies. If GMO crops are approved, and article 3j of our patent laws is diluted, misinterpreted, and distorted, India as a civilization dies and becomes a colony in the toxic empire of the Poison Cartel.

This is why we are continuing the Sarson Satyagraha we started in 1998 – to keep India free, healthy and prosperous.

(Dr. Vandana Shiva was appointed by the UN to an expert group to create the Biosafety Framework to implement art 19.3 of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). This framework evolved into the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Dr Shiva has also served on the National Expert Group which drafted India’s National Biodiversity Act, and the Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act.)

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Mae-Wan Ho,, Angela Ryan, & Joe Cummins (1999) Cauliflower Mosaic Viral Promoter – A Recipe for Disaster?, Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease, 11:4, 194-197, DOI: 10.1080/08910609943562.

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cover image credit: Finmiki

Pressured: Are High Pressure Processing (HPP) “Cold Pasteurized” Foods Safe?

Pressured

by Sally Fallon Morell, Nourishing Traditions, Weston A. Price Foundation
October 24, 2022

Modern technocrats have found lots of ways to ruin our food—like rapid heating of milk to 160 or even 230 degrees, zapping with microwaves, irradiating with radioactive materials, spray drying at high temperatures, extruding at high temperatures and pressures and embalming with sugar. Now a new technology has come on the scene: ultra-high pressure applied to a variety of foods for humans, pets and babies.

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cover image credit: Hiperberic and ScienceImage