Archive for Organic – Page 4
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
PUSH BACK Triumph: Biotech Giant Monsanto Forced to Withdraw Application for Approval of Two Types of GMO Corn – Safety Science Simply Not There
Push Back is the only thing that will work to reclaim our rights. Let’s face it: the people involved in taking them away are not going to suddenly see the light and hand them back to us. The production of safe, clean food, to reclaim our Constitutional rights, to reclaim our sovereignty over our own bodies (and those of our children), our rights to privacy and our right to make our own decisions about chipping and poisoned foods and vaccines and all the rest of our fundamental choices and freedoms.
Access to clean, unadulterated food is a basic human right. You know it, I know it and the globalists know it, too. We believe in it, they want to take it away from us. There simply is no better control mechanism than food: who lives and who dies depends on what food they have access to, whether they have access to it and what the condition of the food is. Clear and simple. Starving and weakening people is an ancient method of dominating and eliminating them. Some time ago, the Natural Solutions Foundation, looking, as we always do, for the most profound solution to a problem, realized that farmers were no longer able to grow clean food because of chemical inputs which had replaced ancient knowledge and poisoned the fertility of their land.
It was clear to us that reclaiming the production of food for people, rather than submitting to the distorted, degraded and increasingly industrialized production of food was the next battleground. To fight – and win – that battle, the Natural Solutions Foundation created the International Decade of Nutrition and, as part of it, the Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project. Visit us at www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org to learn more, and to find out how you can become a participant in this unique and powerful project, already underway at many levels. Visiting this site you will find out how you can volunteer, visit or participate on a long term basis.
One of our reclaimation projects is the growing of chemical free coffee and then teaching local farmers how to do the same. You can support the Foundation and the Valley of the Moon(TM) by drinking health freedom’s coffee. Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee is FREE! Free of GMOs, Free of Pesticides, Free of Herbicides, Free of any contamination. Wake up to health freedom! Click here, to order your Valley of the Moon(TM) Toxin Free Coffee! Oh, and 80% of your purchase is tax deductible! Isn’t this the perfect gift for you, your gift list and your corporate gift list, too?
We looked world-wide for the best possible location for our Eco Demonstration project and, after a 3.5 year search, chose the Highlands of Panama for a large number of reasons. One of them is that Panamanian law prohibits GMOs since their safety has, as the event described below shows, not been proven. Under the Precautionary Principle, which is a part of Napoleonic Code legal systems, but which is absent from Common Law legal systems like the US’s, since their safety has not been demonstrated, they may not be used.
Valley of the Moon(TM) is part of our global Push Back. So is our Food Freedom eJournal, www.FoodFreedomeJournal.org, which will help you to grow your own food in tiny spaces so that you can be part of this food freedom renaissance, too! After all, it’s your food, your freedom, your health and, most importantly of all, your choice!
Push Back is a long, hard slog through the seemingly endless muck and mud of the other side’s amply funded propaganda, smears, attacks and derision.
That’s all part of a day’s work .
And nobody does Push Back like you, the Health Freedom Net Roots! Do you think that Monsanto, the biotech giant which has/owns the ear, the hand and the dinner table of the US as its personal property would have stepped back from its intended dominance of the global food chain without a huge hue and cry from people who know what is right and are not prepared to accept what is wrong as if it were safe, useful, correct or safe.
Is the issue over? Of course not! This is the same corporation which reputedly delivers sacks full of high denomination US currency to officials in countries like Indonesia and Thailand, where it literally bribes its way into tragic ownership of the food supply there (and all exports, as in Thailand, the world’s leading rice exporter). The same corporation for whom the US Department of Justice changed its rules so this blatant bribery and corruption would no longer constitute a criminal offense. The same corporation which has been directly responsible for more than 130,000 Indian farmer suicides after its illegal (ruled illegal by the Indian Supreme Court 3 times!) marketing and crop dissemination activities have deprived them of their livelihoods, their homes, their land and their ability to sustain themselves either in their communities or in the burgeoning hopeless slums. The same corporation which knowingly sells GMO white corn in Africa, where it is a staple of the diet, knowing that the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus used as a promoter in the biotech process, itself, in the absence of any virus, destroyes the immune system so that the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS is, for untold millions of Africans, not the product of sexual behaviors of infection, but of the very food that they are eating, the very food which is literally killing them.
Monsanto and DuPont teamed up, you will recall, not so many years ago, to purchase the patent on a GMO corn that makes spermicide in the body, rendering the animals, including the human animals, which eat it, sterile or, if the animals are females, renders them unable to receive sperm without destroying it with antibodies to the sperm.
So while step forward after step forward of the Biotech industry has been to push us to our knees and our graves, this step was backwards. We must shout, rejoice, and renew our efforts to make sure that all of their steps are back and none of them are forward.
In this directional dance for health and freedom lies our future, our very survival. One voice is lost in the wilderness. Millions of voices create ….PUSHBACK!
Natural Solutions Foundation is 100% supporter supported. Please make your tax deductible donation to the Natural Solutions Foundation to help us with the push back we work on, in this and so many other areas, by clicking here, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189. Why not give
We depend on you.
Thanks.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the MoonTM Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketplace.org
Monsanto Pulls GM Corn Amid Food Safety Concerns
Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 12:05 pm
Press Release: Robt Mann
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0911/S00548.htm
Monsanto Pulls GM Corn Amid Serious Food Safety Concerns Applicant’s Dossiers Contained Wide-Ranging Fraudulent Research
Press Notice from GM Free Cymru 9 November 2009
For the first time, a GM multinational has pulled two GM corn varieties from the regulatory and assessment process at the eleventh hour (1), after planning for a future income of several billion dollars per year from global sales (2). Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for a so-called “second generation GM crop” rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data (3).
http://search.scoop.co.nz/search?q=related:WO0911/S00548
Under conditions of great secrecy, Monsanto has informed EFSA that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810. Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006. The letters cite “decreased commercial value worldwide” and state that the high-lysene varieties “will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future.” (4) There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either. In other words, there is a conspiracy of silence involving both the applicants and the regulators.
The two letters sent to EFSA in April requested the return of all dossier material (varietal characterization, experimental protocols, and test results) which was submitted with the applications for cultivation, animal feed and human food (4). EFSA acceded to this request, making it impossible for any future independent researchers to analyse the Monsanto / Renessen data. That in itself is profoundly disturbing.
Scientists who have followed these two applications are quite convinced that the “decisions to withdraw” have nothing to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with food safety. In other words, the varieties are too dangerous to be allowed onto the open market — although they would certainly have been approved by EFSA and most other European regulatory authorities had it not been for the diligence of independent scientists in New Zealand who subjected the application dossiers to very close scrutiny (5). In the absence of such scrutiny in the United States, the varieties were approved in 2005 for cultivation, animal feed and human food use on the other side of the Atlantic (6). Consents for food and feed use were also given in Japan, Canada, the Philippines, and South Korea. In 2007 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) approved LY038 for food and feed use in spite of strenuous objections from the Green Party and scientists at Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) who warned that the new corn was not safe for humans when cooked (7). They also expressed concerns about unpredictable health effects, increased levels of toxins in high- lysene corn, and possible allergies and links to cancer.
It does not appear that the varieties have been grown or “commercialized” anywhere in the world (8), although test plantings probably occurred in the United States.
“Blatant scientific fraud by the applicants”
While INBI’s detailed and devastating analysis of the applicant’s supporting dossiers was dismissed out of hand by FSANZ, EFSA was forced to take it seriously because of concerns from a large number of European countries including Finland and Malta. The scientific bases of those concerns were highlighted by Jeffrey Smith in his book “Genetic Roulette” and by Prof Jack Heinemann in his book “Hope not Hype” (9). The Monsanto dossiers included rigged research and false assumptions in the reported experiments; a failure to offer any test results based on cooked or processed corn; a failure to test the whole GM plant in feeding trials; confusing and contradictory characterizations of the GM varieties and proteins; a fraudulent mixing of GM strains during trials; a pooling of crop data so as to mask undesirable effects in experiments; feeding trials too short to reveal true physiological changes in animal tissues; and the choice of an irrelevant, unrelated corn variety as the control group for comparison with the GM lines, with the clear intention of hiding potentially serious differences in composition or side effects on animals(10). The Codex guidelines for the testing of GM crops were thus comprehensively broken by Monsanto’s subsidiary Renessen, and were not enforced by the regulators in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (11). All in all, this amounted to blatant scientific fraud by the applicants, and a cynical failure to enforce the rules, and to protect the public, by the regulators.
During the assessments of these two varieties in Europe, many countries used the INBI peer review of the applicant’s dossiers to underpin their concerns, and these widely-expressed concerns forced EFSA to ask the applicants for additional studies and for a clarification of their experimental data (12). EFSA also asked — for the first time — for adherence to the Codex rules relating to GM and comparator studies. In the knowledge that their dossiers were now being subjected to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, Monsanto / Renessen simply decided that they would not cooperate in this process for fear of what might emerge. So they wrote to EFSA in April (4) to indicate that they were abandoning all plans for the cultivation and commercialization of the two GM crops.
“EFSA has been unfit for purpose”
Commenting for GM-Free Cymru, Dr Brian John said: “This is the first time, to our knowledge, that EFSA has sought to enforce the Codex rules relating to the use of isolines in the testing of GM crops, and the first time that it has expressed profound dissatisfaction about the content of an applicant’s dossiers. It is also the first time that a GM multinational has withdrawn a GM product (or two products) at the eleventh hour. It was insane in the first place to seek to pass GM maize crops containing Bt toxins and “growth enhancers” straight into the human food chain (13). In addition, EFSA and the other regulators have been quite irresponsible in the past in assuming that “stacked” events, hybridized from two GM lines, are harmless if the applicant says so, and if the separate lines have been independently approved. That is simply bad science, since it fails to address the likelihood of synergistic effects and even accumulating toxins in the food chain (14).
“Nonetheless, we applaud the fact that EFSA has asked Monsanto some hard questions in this case, having in the past demonstrated, over and again, that its GMO Panel is simply unfit for purpose (15). This represents progress.
“We are quite convinced that Monsanto has been fully aware, from the beginning, that line LY038 and line LY038 x MON810 are both dangerous; and yet they persisted with their applications until the extent of their scientific fraud was exposed to the public. We should not be surprised by this. The corporation pushes dangerous products onto the food market all the time, and does whatever is necessary to hoodwink the regulators into the belief that all is well (16). We are convinced that Mansanto has other in-house studies which show that these varieties are unstable, unpredictable and harmful to health. Will we ever get to see these studies? No way!”
Natural Solutions Foundation
November 16, 2009
Natural Solutions Foundation is the largest and most effective health freedom organization in the world. We are 100% supporter supported. Your tax deductible donations are essential to our work. Click here, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189, to set up your recurring donation, large or small.
Donations ending in the number “6” are earmarked for our legal fund, allowing us to sue the FDA, for example, to stop the deployment of untested vaccines like the dangerous Swine Flu Vaccine.
Natural Solutions Foundation is working hard to end the ravages of the type of industrial agriculture you’ll read about below. Through our Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project we’re reclaiming the production of food, making them eligible for Friendly Food Certification(TM) because it is friendly to the earth, friendly to the workers and friendly to the consumer. The first Friendly Food Certified(TM) food is our GMO-Free, Pesticide-Free, Toxin-Free Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee grown in the Highlands of Panama and brought to your coffee cup so you can Wake Up to Health Freedom(TM). Click here, http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, to order your Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee and support health freedom and your health. Your gift list, both personal and corporate, will appreciate it. And your accountant will appreciate it, too, because 80% of each purchase of Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee is tax deductible!
Industrial Agriculture is now going global, with its dislocation, its toxic environments, its massive profits and its social destruction under the guise of nations looking for fresh farmland.
Food is the new oil. Corporations are the not-so-new sharks – well, that is not fair to sharks. They have a real place in the biosphere and the multinationals have made it clear over decades and decades of abuse that their place in the economic ecoshphere might be best compared to Darth Vader.
The Natural Solutions Foundation, www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, has identified food sustainable food production, and, of course, land ownership by those producing the sustainable food on it, as a key issue for health, community cohesion and economic success, social strength, freedom and, indeed, peace.
It is for that reason that we have established the remarkable, and vitally important Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project in the Chiriqui Highlands of Panama. We believe that access to food, clean, unadulterated food, is a basic human right and that restricting that access is a massively powerful way to remove rights and take away basic human needs and, eventually, life.
Our work here is local, but our impact is global. By the way, if you are interested in either visiting the Valley of the Moon, becoming a participant in this sustainable community or or volunteering here, please join at our VotM Yahoo! Forum, NSF-Panama, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NSF-Panama/join or our Volunteer’s Forum, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NSF-Panama/.
At VotM we are practicing what we preach and are creating schools for a melding of ancient and modern techniques to reclaim the production of clean, unadulterated food for both farmers and non farmers alike.
In fact, in addition to our Intensive Urban Agriculture classes and courses with children and adults using many of the techniques you can see on our Food Freedom eJournal, www.FoodFreedomeJournal.org, we are now heavily involved in removing the dangerous chemicals from coffee and food production. Cattle production, for example, uses many different toxic chemicals for keeping pests at bay and, in some cases, increasing milk production.
Natural Solutions Foundation has been asked by the government here to help farmers break the dangerous cycle of chemical and drug inputs leading to weaker ecosystems and animals which then require more of the expensive and dangerous inputs.
Add corporate land ownership, where there is zero interest in health, sustainability or cultural cohesion and you have Monsanto’s GMO cotton farming disaster in India where tragically high numbers of farmers, having lost their land to the deceptive practices of GMO cotton companies, see no recourse but to kill themselves after they have lost their land and have no means to sustain themselves and their families.
For more information on this problem in India, please visit “The Dying Fields“, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/the-dying-fields/global-cotton-industry/farmer-suicides-in-india/1948/.
Why is reclaiming the production of food important to you, today? If you live in the US, about 90% of the food you eat either IS GMO or contains GMO ingredients. GMO foods are now known to cause cancer, autoimmune diseases, infertility, birth defects, loss of CD-4 cells to the point that the criteria for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (yes, that’s right: HIV/AIDS) are met, and a host of serious, permanent diseases and mutations. These altered foods contain material which crosses the placental and blood brain barriers to cause permanent genetic changes, as they do in the bacteria of the GI tract and in every cell in the body.
“But I eat only certified organic food!” you may say. Well and good IF you are growing your own organic food, protected from both pesticide and genetic drift. Otherwise, the US allows 10% or more GMO contamination of organic food without any labeling. Indeed, labeling of GMO foods is actually prohibited in the US because, as Dr. Barbara Schneeman announced at a Codex Meeting in Norway on the topic, since the FDA administratively determined that genetically modified foods are “substantially equivalent” to non modified foods [in the absence of a single shred of scientific support for this concept – if they were substantially identical, they would not be patentable – REL] and since consumers would reject these genetically modified foods if they knew that they WERE genetically modified, the FDA is preventing them from making an error in rejecting them. So, instead, the FDA and USDA are carrying out the world’s largest experiment on every eater on the planet. It is an experiment carried out, of course, without any informed consent. On you. On your children. On the children that you, or others, will never have because of the sterility impact of these foods.
But that is not all, of course. Corporate agriculture pumps poisons (that is a literal description, of course, not a figurative one) into the bodies of the workers, the environment and the bodies of the consumers. If the land becomes too toxic, or the water no longer supports growth and life, the corporation moves on, like a parasite which has sucked the life out of its host and then, when the host can no longer support it, drops off and moves on to another host.
Food and freedom are intimately intertwined. This theme has been with us for a very long time. Look at the myths of the bible: remember that when Essau was hungry, he sold his birthright to Jacob. When Joseph and his brothers were hungry, they traded their freedom for the fleshpots of Egypt.
Industrial Agriculture can be, if its owners wish it, the newest form of scorched earth policy: stave those whom you do not wish to survive.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the MoonTM Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketplace.org
The article published below is a study from GRAIN, www.Grain.org
Published on Sunday, November 15, 2009 by GRAIN
The New Farm Owners: Corporate Investors Lead the Rush for Control over Overseas Farmland
by GRAIN
With all the talk about “food security,” and distorted media statements like “South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s land,”1 it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today’s global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments.
“This is going to be a private initiative.”
– Amin Abaza, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture, explaining Egyptian farmland acquisitions in other African nations, on World Food Day 2009
Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).
This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them.
“What started as a government drive to secure cheap food resource has now become a viable business model and many Gulf companies are venturing into agricultural investments to diversify their portfolios.”
– Sarmad Khan, “Farmland investment fund is seeking more than Dh1bn”, The National, Dubai, 12 September 2009
Moreover, there’s a tendency to assume that private-sector involvement in the global land grab amounts to traditional agribusiness or plantation companies, like Unilever or Dole, simply expanding the contract farming model of yesterday. In fact, the high-power finance industry, with little to no experience in farming, has emerged as a crucial corporate player. So much so that the very phrase “investing in agriculture”, today’s mantra of development bureaucrats, should not be understood as automatically meaning public funds. It is more and more becoming the business of … big business.
The role of finance capital
GRAIN has tried to look more closely at who the private sector investors currently taking over farmlands around the world for offshore food production really are. From what we have gathered, the role of finance capital — investment funds and companies — is truly significant. We have therefore constructed a table to share this picture. The table outlines over 120 investment structures, most of them newly created, which are busy acquiring farmland overseas in the aftermath of the financial crisis.3 Their engagement, whether materialised or targeted, rises into the tens of billions of dollars. The table is not exhaustive, however. It provides only a sample of the kinds of firms or instruments involved, and the levels of investment they are aiming for.
Private investors are not turning to agriculture to solve world hunger or eliminate rural poverty. They want profit, pure and simple. And the world has changed in ways that now make it possible to make big money from farmland. From the investors’ perspective, global food needs are guaranteed to grow, keeping food prices up and providing a solid basis for returns on investment for those who control the necessary resource base. And that resource base, particularly land and water, is under stress as never before. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, so-called alternative investments, such as infrastructure or farmland, are all the rage. Farmland itself is touted as providing a hedge against inflation. And because its value doesn’t go up and down in sync with other assets like gold or currencies, it allows investors to successfully diversify their portfolios.
“We are not farmers. We are a large company that uses state-of-the-art technology to produce high-quality soybean. The same way you have shoemakers and computer manufacturers, we produce agricultural commodities.” Laurence Beltrão Gomes of SLC Agrícola, the largest farm company in Brazil.
But it’s not just about land, it’s about production. Investors are convinced that they can go into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc to consolidate holdings, inject a mix of technology, capital and management skills, lay down the infrastructures and transform below-potential farms into large-scale agribusiness operations. In many cases, the goal is to generate revenue streams both from the harvests and from the land itself, whose value they expect to go up. It is a totally corporate version of the Green Revolution, and their ambitions are big. “My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector,” said Joseph Carvin of Altima Partners’ One World Agriculture Fund to a gathering of global farmland investors in New York in June 2009. No wonder, then, that governments, the World Bank and the UN want to be associated with this. But it is not their show.
From rich to richer
“I’m convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that’s a long ways away yet.”
– George Soros, June 2009
Today’s emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like. The pace and extent of their appetite is remarkable – but unsurprising, given the scramble to recover from the financial crisis.
Consolidated data are lacking, but we can see that billions of dollars are going into farmland acquisitions for a growing number of “get rich quick” schemes. And some of those dollars are hard-earned retirement savings of teachers, civil servants and factory workers from countries such as the US or the UK. This means that a lot of ordinary citizens have a financial stake in this trend, too, whether they are aware of it or not.
It also means that a new, powerful lobby of corporate interests is coming together, which wants favourable conditions to facilitate and protect their farmland investments. They want to tear down burdensome land laws that prevent foreign ownership, remove host-country restrictions on food exports and get around any regulations on genetically modified organisms. For this, we can be sure that they will be working with their home governments, and various development banks, to push their agendas around the globe through free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and donor conditionalities.
“When asked whether a transfer of foreign, ‘superior’, agricultural technology would be welcome compensation for the acquisition of Philippine lands, the farmers from Negros Occidental responded with a general weariness and unequivocal retort that they were satisfied with their own knowledge and practices of sustainable, diverse and subsistence-based farming. Their experience of high-yielding variety crops, and the chemical-intensive technologies heralded by the Green Revolution, led them to the conclusion that they were better off converting to diverse, organic farming, with the support of farmer-scientist or member organizations such as MASIPAG and PDG Inc.”
– Theodora Tsentas, “Foreign state-led land acquisitions and neocolonialism: A qualitative case study of foreign agricultural development in the Philippines”, September 2009
Indeed, the global land grab is happening within the larger context of governments, both in the North and the South, anxiously supporting the expansion of their own transnational food and agribusiness corporations as the primary answer to the food crisis. The deals and programmes being promoted today all point to a restructuring and expansion of the industrial food system, based on capital-intensive large-scale monocultures for export markets. While that may sound “old hat”, several things are new and different. For one, the infrastructure needs for this model will be dealt with. (The Green Revolution never did that.) New forms of financing, as our table makes plain, are also at the base of it. Thirdly, the growing protagonism of corporations and tycoons from the South is also becoming more important. US and European transnationals like Cargill, Tyson, Danone and Nestlé, which once ruled the roost, are now being flanked by emerging conglomerates such as COFCO, Olam, Savola, Almarai and JBS.4 A recent report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development pointed out that a solid 40% of all mergers and acquisitions in the field of agricultural production last year were South-South.5 To put it bluntly, tomorrow’s food industry in Africa will be largely driven by Brazilian, ethnic Chinese and Arab Gulf capital.
Exporting food insecurity
Given the heavy role of the private sector in today’s land grabs, it is clear that these firms are not interested in the kind of agriculture that will bring us food sovereignty. And with hunger rising faster than population growth, it will not likely do much for food security, either.
One farmers’ leader from Synérgie Paysanne in Benin sees these land grabs as fundamentally “exporting food insecurity”. For they are about answering some people’s needs – for maize or money – by taking food production resources away from others. He is right, of course. In most cases, these investors are themselves not very experienced in running farms. And they are bound, as the Coordinator of MASIPAG in the Philippines sees it, to come in, deplete the soils of biological life and nutrients through intensive farming, pull out after a number of years and leave the local communities with “a desert”.
“Entire communities have been dispossessed of their lands for the benefit of foreign investors. (…) Land must remain a community heritage in Africa.”
– N’Diogou Fall, ROPPA (West African Network of Producers and Peasant Organisations), June 2009
The talk about channeling this sudden surge of dollars and dirhams into an agenda for resolving the global food crisis could be seen as quirky if it were not downright dangerous. From the United Nations headquarters in New York to the corridors of European capitals, everyone is talking about making these deals “win-win”. All we need to do, the thinking goes, is agree on a few parameters to moralise and discipline these land grab deals, so that they actually serve local communities, without scaring investors off. The World Bank even wants to create a global certification scheme and audit bureau for what could become “sustainable land grabbing”, along the lines of what’s been tried with oil palm, forestry or other extractive industries.
Before jumping on the bandwagon of “win-win”, it would be wise to ask “With whom? Who are the investors? What are their interests?” It is hard to believe that, with so much money on the line, with so much accumulated social experience in dealing with mass land concessions and conversions in the past, whether from mining or plantations, and given the central role of the finance and agribusiness industries here, these investors would suddenly play fair. Just as hard to believe is that governments or international agencies would suddenly be able to hold them to account.
“Some companies are interested in buying agricultural land for sugar cane and then selling it on the international markets. It’s business, nothing more” Sharad Pawar, India’s Minister of Agriculture, rejecting claims that his government is supporting a new colonisation of African farmland, 28 June 2009
Making these investments work is simply not the right starting point.
Supporting small farmers efforts for real food sovereignty is. Those are two highly polarised agendas and it would be mistaken to pass off one for the other. It is crucial to look more closely at who the investors are and what they really want. But it is even more important to put the search for solutions to the food crisis on its proper footing.
References
1 – It was not South Korea, but Daewoo Logistics.
2 – See GRAIN, “Mauritius leads land grabs for rice in Mozambique”, Oryza hibrida, 1 September 2009. http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221 (Available in English, French and Portuguese.)
3 – The table covers three types of entities: specialized funds, most of them farmland funds; asset and investment managers; and participating investors. We are aware that this is a broad mixture, but it was important for us to keep the table simple: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266
4 – COFCO is based in China, Olam is based in Singapore, Savola is based in Saudi Arabia, Almarai is based in Saudi Arabia, and JBS is based in Brazil.
5 – World Investment Report 2009, UNCTAD, Geneva, September 2009, p. xxvii. Most foreign direct investment takes place through mergers and acquisitions.
© 2009 GRAIN
GRAIN is a small international non-profit organization that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Their support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building.
Natural Solutions Foundation Special Holiday Promotion
Your Company’s Gift List Supporting Health Freedom…And Your Bottom Line!
Permalink: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=3991
November 15, 2009
This Holiday Season, Give Valley of the Moon™ Coffee
The World’s Best GMO-Free Coffee
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
A Friendly Food CertifiedTM Product
Courtesy of the Natural Solutions Foundation
“Stay tuned” for our next informative Health Freedom Action eAlert!
Not on the List? Sign up at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org now! Safe, Secure, Info. NEVER shared! We Promise!
Two Important New Health Freedom Blogs:
Dr. Rima on Vaccinations and Medical Fascism
http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=3982
Counsel Ralph on the “Stop the Shot” Case, Round Two
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/11/round-two-stop-shot-federal-case.html
Live in Denver or Know Anyone Who Does?
Don’t Inject Me Rally
Friday, Nov. 27th, Noon to 2PM Mountain Time.
West steps of the Denver Capitol, 200 East Colfax, Denver.
Contact Jenny Hatch for more information at: 303-604-1107, or e-mail: JennyMHatch@Yahoo.com
GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE!
Your Corporate Gifts are 80% Tax Deductible When You Give Valley of the Moon™ Coffee!
http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee is Shade Grown and Hand Picked at the Peak of Perfection
Valley of the Moon™ Shade Grown, GMO-free and Chemical-Free Coffee makes a wonderful corporate gift and for every $25 gift gives your company receives an astonishing $20 tax deduction! That’s a full 80% deduction when you give this meaningful, memorable and mmm…delicious gift!
http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
You’ll know your corporate purchase is supporting health freedom and your accountant knows that it’s supporting your bottom line.
Natural Solutions Foundation Is On Your Side
Lean, Green Giving in Partnership with the Natural Solutions Foundation Supports Your Health Freedom and Your Bottom Line at the Same Time
Corporate Holiday Special – Minimum 10 Gifts
* Direct Shipment to your recipients included. Different addresses no problem.
* Personalized Gift Card from your company direct to your recipients included
* Friendly Food Certificate included
* 80% of each gift cost is tax deductible
We know the challenges facing companies in today’s difficult economy. Our Holiday Gift Program supports your business in several ways:
1. Each 1/2 lb gift of GMO-free, Chemical-free Valley of the Moon™ Coffee http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, shows your customers that you really care about their health, health freedom and the environment! Every gift represents a donation by your company to the Natural Solutions Foundation of $20 in their honor as part of your on-going support for Health Freedom. Your Personalized Card will let them know!
2. We know that every penny in your pocket, rather than Uncle Sam’s, is important in this financial climate. So your gifts support Health Freedom, your recipient’s health, health freedom and your bottom line, all at the same time. For every 1/2 lb gift of Health Freedom’s Own Coffee, GMO-Free Valley of the Moon Coffee, you purchase for yourself or others, your company will receive a $20 tax donation credit to the Natural Solutions Foundation.
What’s So Special About Valley of the Moon™ Coffee?
http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
Natural Solutions Foundation’s owns and farms its own coffee finca (farm) in the Highlands of Panama as part of its Valley of the Moon™ Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org.
We know exactly what touches every Valley of the Moon™ coffee bean!
Like everything else we do at Valley of the Moon™, our coffee production is based around reclaiming the production of food, world wide. After all, that’s why Valley of the Moon™ exists. We grow wonderful coffee, absolutely free from any toxic chemicals and we’re helping our neighbors convert to BeyondOrganic, BioDynamic Zero Emissions™ agriculture, too.
Valley of the Moon™ coffee is shade grown, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=1344, chemical-free and free of GMOs. One sip and you’ll understand why we say Valley of the Moon™ Coffee , www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, is a Little Bit of Heaven in a Cup™!
This toxin free coffee is the “first fruits” of our Valley of the Moon™ Demonstration Project, providing you and your recipients with the finest coffee you have ever tasted AND showing local farmers how they can transition to natural solutions with positive economic consequences.
Another part of this effort is our www.FoodFreedomeJournal.org.
We know Valley of the Moon™Coffee is clean, pure — and grown to protect you, the Ngoble-Bugle Indians who raise it and the Earth. How do we know? Because we raise it ourselves as part of the Valley of the Moon™ Eco Demonstration Project in the pristine Chiriqui Highlands of Panama!
Valley of the Moon™ Coffee, www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, is the first product good enough to be awarded our “Friendly Food Certification” because it’s friendly to your health, to farmers and to the Earth!
Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, is both the largest and the most effective Health Freedom Organization in the world. We depend exclusively on your tax deductible donations, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=196, and purchases to support our work.
Any donation which ends in the number “6” will be earmarked for our legal fund to Stop the Shot and support legal actions against compulsory vaccination actions and statutes.
An astounding 100% of your tax deductible donations go directly to our work http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=196, protecting your health freedom and personal rights to choose natural health options despite the wishes of the FDA, Big Pharma and their friends. Because we know that you will want your company to give a truly meaningful and memorable, but economical, gift, we are making this exceptional offer available to you and your company as a way of saying, “Thanks for supporting health freedom.”
So whether your company is large or small (or you are a person with a gift list – and who isn’t?), when you purchase our outstanding Valley of the MoonTM GMO-Free, Pesticide-Free, Herbicide-Free, Toxin-Free coffee we’ll send you (or the people on your gift list) a 1/2 lb gift of our full bodied, pesticide free Friendly Food Certified Valley of the Moon™ Coffee, http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org!
Get some right now. Give some right now!
Our beautifully packaged, clearly labeled coffee (available in either whole beans or medium grind) makes a wonderful gift. It can be shipped directly to everyone on your gift list with a personalized note letting them know that the gift comes from your company. Just send us your recipients’ info when you place the order in an email to nsfmarketplace@gmail.com with “COFFEE LIST” as the subject line and we’ll make sure the gift, and the card, arrive before December 25, 2009. This offer is good until December 16, 2009. After that we cannot guarantee delivery by December 25, 2009.
What about your personal list? Why not give health freedom’s own coffee, www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, to everyone on your personal (and business) holiday gift list? Including yourself!
Not a coffee drinker? Not a problem.
Make your selection for your clean, green and health friendly gifts from our Virtual Stores, www.Organics4U.org and www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org or simply make your tax deductible recurring donation, large or small, here, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189, to help keep health freedom free.
Thanks!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Friendly Food Certified Coffee
Estate Grown, Limited Production
Give Yourself and Your Gift List a Truly Unique Gift Now
Click HERE, http://www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org, To order.
Valley of the Moon Coffee™ supports your health and your health freedom at the same time! “Friendly Food Certified” means GMO, pesticide and toxin free coffee. Your donation brings you A Little Bit of Heaven in a Cup(c): a 1/2 lb gift of ground or whole eco-friendly, shade grown coffee hand roasted in small batches.
Isn’t it time you had “A Little Bit of Heaven in YOUR Cup”™?
Your Price per 1/2 lb Bag: $25.00
Your Donation per 1/2 lb bag: $20.00
S&H per 1/2 lb bag: $3.60
Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee is carefully hand grown, harvested, roasted and packed to arrive at your door fresh and fragrant – without chemicals or GMOs! Your tax deductible donation to the Natural Solutions Foundation , http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189, supports the International Decade of Nutrition, http:www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org a program of the Natural Solutions Foundation, and your coffee tastes wonderful!
Workers and their families live safe from chemical harm on our Valley of the Moon™ Coffee Farm
PS: Remember, Chemical Free Coffee means no toxic chemicals in your morning cup! Valley of the Moon™ Coffee contains nothing but natural goodness – your donation supports health freedom and the environment, all at the same time!
Check Out How You Can To Get Free Shipping For a Limited Time Only
Donate $100 or more and you’ll receive 4 bags (1/2 lb each) of Valley of the Moon™, an $80 tax deduction AND we’ll throw in the shipping!
OR
Make a recurring donation of at least $25 per month and we’ll send you a 1/2 lb bag of Valley of the Moon™ coffee once a month (that’s a $20 tax deduction for each $25 you donate!) AND we’ll cover the shipping costs as an extra “Thank You”. This offer makes a great corporate gift!
Offer Expires: December 15, 2009
To unsubscribe from this Health Freedom Action Alert, click on the link below and enter your email address:
http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/healthfreedomusa/unsubscribe.jsp
This important article highlights three different problems: First, drugs and vaccines which have NOT been either studied or approved for pregnant woman are being used as if their unique biochemical and physiological needs (remember, their bodies have adapted to the unique stress of feeding and forming another being within their own bodies) and those of the baby within can be ignored because it is more convenient to forget about them and just use drugs and vaccines that are handy, or with which the doctor is familiar. Second, marketing pressures and propaganda lead doctors and their associates to use vaccines and drugs in pregnant woman and their babies EVEN THOUGH they are know to be dangerous to these woman and their babies. Third, safe, effective and well-known treatments exist for each of the conditions for which dangerous pharmaceutical treatments are widely, and unwisely, used. For example, if there were a danger from a virus like H1N1 or from urinary tract (or other) infections, the use of nano silver would eliminate it since it safely kills pathogens while leaving vital probiotics in place without danger to the fetus or mother.
Antibiotics, psychiatric medication and vaccines are three perfect examples of dangerous drugs widely, but unwisely, used in these vulnerable people: mothers and unborn babies. In the PDR (Physicians’ Desk Reference (R) ) and package inserts pertaining to such drugs, caution is urged stating that the drugs in these classes should be used in pregnant woman, and in the case of psychiatric drugs, in women of child bearing age, only where there are no other options or when the benefit overrides the risks to mother and child.
OK. Risks are supposed to outweigh benefits. But in the case of vaccines for H1N1, what benefits? The disease is mild and inconsequential despite the hype. There is no additional risk to pregnant women and their babies from H1N1 infection unless they are treated with the dangerous antiviral. None. A close investigation of the statistics, as Dr. Russell Blaylock has provided, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx, makes that clear.
What are the risks? Well, since no testing has been done on the safety of the vaccines in pregnant women and on fetuses, the risks are, as the vaccine package inserts make clear, totally unknown. ALL multidose vials of injectable H1N1 vaccine contain mercury and the risks of mercury to the fetus are well characterized and well known. Astonishingly, the FDA and CDC now say that pregnant women should expose their fetuses to the well established dangers of mercury in order to receive the “benefits” of the H1N1 vaccines without explaining how the risks of mercury have been either eliminated or overcome.
Additionally, GSK’s vaccine is adjuvanted with squalene and under an Emergency Use Authorization, the FDA now permits its store of injectable squalene to be used as an additive to the injectable vaccines in the 90,000 injection stations. Since the only way that squalene can be drawn up and mixed with the vaccine is to add it to the mercury-containing multi-does vials, and it is the multidose vials which contain mercury, this guarantees that mothers and babies will be dosed with high doses of mercury AND squalene.
Since squalene is known to cause severe disease when injected and has previously never been approved for injection in humans, there is little or nothing known about its impact on either pregnant mothers or their babies. What is known, however, is that squalene injected at the doses which are indicated in the 1998 patents for its use, which appear to be the same doses in the planned admixture with the vaccines, can also cause to cause permanent, irreversible sterility. That means that the pregnancies these woman are carrying will be their last. Will their children also be permanently and irreversibly sterile? We do not know.
Psychiatric drugs are strongly contraindicated in pregnant woman and in women who might become pregnant. Yet the United States Congress, under the influence, I presume, of the huge numbers of pharmaceutical lobbyists and their even more vast funding abilities have passed a bill which requires psychiatric “screening” to detect and drug pregnant women and new mothers with drugs to “treat” post partum depression with drugs whose impact on the fetus and nursing child can be literally cataclysmic.
This study makes it clear that antibiotics are similarly dangerous. They, like vaccines and psychiatric drugs, have been little studies in pregnant women, but what is known makes it clearly inadvisable to use any of them in pregnancy without the strongest of indications.
The article below makes it clear that drugs taken for granted by patients and doctors for safety in pregnancy should not be lightly regarded despite the general mistaken consensus that they are safe, effective and harmless. Vaccines, antibiotics, psychiatric drugs, and, indeed, all drugs require such caution and replacement by safe, effective and widely available non-pharmaceuticals for pregnant and nursing women. My own preference, of course, as a physician who has practiced drug-free medicine and psychiatry for the best part of 40 years, is that all drugs, except those in the ER, should be so replaced.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee – Freedom’s Coffee: GMO-Free, Pesticide-Free, Supporting Health Freedom!
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
Natural Solutions Virtual Stores
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Common antibiotics tied to birth defects
Study: Drugs to treat urinary infections could cause heart, brain problems
Mon., Nov . 2, 2009
CHICAGO – Researchers studying antibiotics in pregnancy have found a surprising link between common drugs used to treat urinary infections with birth defectshttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2.gif. Reassuringly, the most-used antibiotics in early pregnancy — penicillins — appear to be the safest.
Bacterial infections themselves can cause problems for the fetus if left unchecked, experts said, so pregnant women shouldn’t avoid antibiotics entirely. Instead, women should discuss antibiotics choices with their doctors.
The new study is the first large analysis of antibiotic use in pregnancy. It found that mothers of babies with birth defects were more likely than mothers with healthy babies to report taking two types of antibiotics during pregnancy: sulfa drugs (brand names include Thiosulfil Forte and Bactrim) and urinary germicides called nitrofurantoins (brand names include Furadantin and Macrobid).
It was the first time an association had been seen between urinary tract treatments and birth defects, said lead author Krista Crider, a geneticist with the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2.gif, which funded the research. “Additional studies are going to need to be done to confirm these findings.”
Before rigorous safety testing
Used for many decades, the antibiotics in question predate the Food and Drug Administration and its requirements for rigorous safety testing. The FDAhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2.gif now grades all drugs for safety to the fetus based on available research, but rigorous studies are so lacking in many cases, that no antibiotics get the highest grade of “A.”
Sulfa drugs are the oldest antibiotics and some animal studies have found harm during pregnancy. Nitrofurantoins previously have been viewed by doctors as safe to treat urinary tract infections during pregnancy.
The study, appearing in November’s Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, may cause doctors to change the drugs they choose to treat pregnant women with infections. The findings were released Monday.
Dr. Susan Mehnert-Kay, a family practice doctor in Tulsa, Okla., who has written about diagnosing and managing urinary tract infections, said the research is “very interesting” and would cause her to reconsider antibiotic choices in early pregnancy.
The study is important because it looked at drugs that have been used for decades without large studies of their safety in pregnant women, said Dr. Michael Katz of the March of Dimes.
“Some physicians are not as attuned to this as they ought to be, so patients have the right to ask questions,” Katz said.
The researchers analyzed data from more than 13,000 mothers whose infants had birth defects and nearly 5,000 women who lived in the same regions with healthy babies.
The women were interviewed by phone from six weeks to two years after their pregnancies. Those who remembered taking antibiotics during the month before conception through the first three months of pregnancy were identified as exposed to antibiotics.
The women’s memories could have been faulty, a substantial weakness of the study, which the authors acknowledged. About one-third of the women who took antibiotics couldn’t remember the specific type of drug they took.
It’s also unclear whether the birth defects were caused by the drugs or by the underlying infections being treated, Crider said.
Birth defects linked to sulfa drugs included rare brain and heart problems, and shortened limbs. Those linked to nitrofurantoins included heart problems and cleft palate. The drugs seemed to double or triple the risk, depending on the defect.
“These defects are rare. Even with a threefold increase in risk, the risk for the individual is still quite low,” Crider said.
Katz of the March of Dimes said anencephaly, a fatal brain problem linked to sulfas, affects about 1 in 10,000 births in the United States. Cleft palate occurs about 20 per 10,000 births.
Crider said the findings give doctors another opportunity to caution against overuse of antibiotics. Viral illnesses like colds and flus shouldn’t be treated with antibiotics, she said.
Women in 10 states, including California, Texas and New York, were interviewed as part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study.
The FDA recommends that pregnant women discuss medications with their doctors, said FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh. The agency has proposed changes to prescription drug labeling that would require more complete information for women of childbearing age, pregnant women and those who breastfeed, Walsh said.
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Sources/Art/APTRANS.gif
NAIS in Sheep’s Clothing
Natural Solutions Foundation
Donate to Keep Health Freedom Free. All donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers: http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=189
Take this Action Step NOW for every member of your family/household and mobilize everyone you can reach to do the same: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714
Visit your Senator to tell him/her how strongly you insist that he/she protect both your food and your freedom. Here is a printable fact sheet you can use to either send to people in your emails or hand out to your Senator and people in health food stores, community members, etc.: http://www.lifespirit.org/FoodSafetyBills-leafletFINAL.pdf
The Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about the coming of Codex to our food supply, with its degradation of every aspect of our food freedom and quality for quite some time. We are so concerned about this food and freedom issue that we are creating the innovative Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, in Volcan, Panama, to teach farmers and non farmers alike how to reclaim the production of food. But meanwhile, the US is loosing its food freedom and its freedom all at the same time.
HR 2749, and its sister bill which the Senate will consider when it reconvenes in September brings it all back home. The article below is long, detailed and vitally important to you and your family. This is not simply a technical bill for technocrats. This is real life food slavery for you and for your family unless we act now.
HR 2749 takes giant steps forward in bringing what none of us want to see into being. HR 2749’s sister bill must NOT pass in the Senate if you value the health that comes from food, value your freedom to grow and source the type of clean, unadulterated food you value and if you do not want to see, eat and be, a global food slave. To date, as I write this, some 876,996 emails have been generated to tell Congress to safeguard, not destroy, our health and our food supply, as well as our freedom. It is imperative that we make sure that the Senate understands that this is not a request, it is a demand. If you have not generated emails to stop this invasion of the Constitution, your health freedom and your food and pets, do so now.
The article below focuses on just one aspect of that program, the National Animal Identification System or NAIS.
There has been a long and powerful battle in the US against NAIS, a regulatory and chipping system which would place extraordinary burdens on small farmers, raising costs of “traceability” and farming practices so high as to drive them out of business, leaving the field to the industrial giants, the Codex Criminals who want food produced cheaply enough to make them even richer – and care nothing about health, safety or the future of either food or your family.
HR 2749, passed under great pressure by the House of Representatives on July 31, 2009, just as it went on August recess, is a disastrous bill for food, for freedom and for farmers. It is a disastrous bill for you. If you keep pets, it is a disastrous bill for them, too.
When we gained successful push back when Congresswoman Rosa Delaurio (CT-D) agreed not to fund NAIS in Committee, we knew that the issue would be back around. And here it is.
Please take the Action Step in our Three for Liberty Campaign, http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=3262, right now, once for each member of your family. Then let every single person you know or can reach that it is urgent that they do the same IF they believe in their right to clean, unadulterated food, do not want Codex’ international globalization standards implemented, want to support small and organic farmers, do not want their pets chipped (yes, their pets!) with devices which have been shown to cause cancer, do not want the FDA to be able to declare martial law (!) and seize property in cases of food contamination and want to be able to grow their own gardens without having to adhere to Codex standards, complete with PIN number!
This is not the United States we believe we live in. This is global food fascism, nothing more and nothing less. Don’t let it happen. It really is up to us.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedomUSA.org
Valley of the Moon Eco Demonstration Project
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMoonCoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
Welcome to the Global Plantation: HR 2749 Authorizes International Take-Over of Domestic Food Production
© Doreen Hannes 2009
Published by permission of the author
HR 2749 AUTHORIZES NAIS and OTHER INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Congressional staffers have been telling people that HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, does not authorize the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Many organic groups have agreed with them. However, this is misleading. Though HR 2749 does not name “the” National Animal Identification System, it still authorizes the program. It also does not state that it legally authorizes Good Agricultural Practices, or GAP, partially comprising Codex guidelines on traceability and food safety, and the OIE’s Guide to Good Farming Practices including auditing, certification and inspections, disincentives for not participating in the form of fines, penalties, and loss of access to market, but it does. Is it possible that Congress was not aware of what it voted on? The bill was changed three times in a 24-hour period before passing the House 283-142 on July 30, 2009.
Are these assertions about HR 2749 wild and unsubstantiated? Proving them is fairly easy—just understand “Good Agricultural Practices” (GAP), how the agencies of the World Trade Organization operate within member countries to achieve them and what comprises the actual jurisdiction of the FDA and USDA. A brief explanation follows, along with substantiating quotes from HR 2749.
First we look to jurisdiction in HR2749….
“Nothing in this Act or any amendment made by this Act shall be construed to alter the jurisdiction between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, under applicable statutes and regulations…” (p.3&4)
Then, tossing our preconceived notions to the wind and looking to law instead, we find that congressional testimony of the FDA on establishing a single food safety agency and a myriad of other sources including the FAO (Food and Ag Organization of the UN), the FDA statements on the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, and many books on food law affirm that FDA has jurisdiction over live food animals:
“FDA is the Federal agency that regulates 80 percent of the nation’s food supply-everything we eat except for meat, poultry, and certain egg products, which are regulated by our partners at USDA. FDA’s responsibility extends to live food animals…”(Cfans Director, March 2004 Congressional hearing)
So then what is the authority of the USDA? It is over agricultural disease, animals in the slaughter channel or transport, marketing (like grading of eggs and certification of processes) and the end product of many (but not all) food animals; meat. This is why NAIS always had to be “about disease” because the USDA couldn’t run it otherwise! The exemption section on USDA regulated products is a dust up. Most people think the USDA has authority over live food animals, but it is the FDA after all. They surrender “cow, sheep or goat for milk production”, but the FDA retains authority of the fluid milk and when the animal is no longer productive for milking, it’s into the slaughter channel (under USDA) or out to pasture (back to FDA) anyway!
“Livestock and poultry that are intended to be presented for slaughter pursuant to the regulations by the Secretary of Agriculture under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act are exempt from the requirements of this Act. A cow, sheep, or goat that is used for the production of milk is exempt from the requirements of this Act.” (p.5 of HR2749)
HR 2749 is 160 pages (July 29 version) and contains the following references to international standards and guidelines (emphasis added for clarity) (all page numbers refer to the PDF file):
“(B) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS.—In issuing guidance or regulations… the Secretary shall review international hazard analysis and preventive control standards that are in existence on the date of the enactment of this Act and relevant to such guidelines or regulations to ensure that the programs…..are consistent……with such standards.” (p. 35)
“CONSISTENCY WITH INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS.—The Secretary shall apply this paragraph consistently with United States obligations under international agreements.” (p. 81)
“The Secretary shall issue regulations to ensure that any qualified certifying entity and its auditors are free from conflicts of interest. In issuing these regulations, the Secretary may rely on or incorporate international certification standards.” (p. 82)
This means that there will be a layer of auditors, certifiers and inspectors over every aspect of food production in this country and that these inspectors and certifiers will be trained in ISO (International Standards Organization) management program certification. The ISO has been working with Codex Alimentarius on Food Safety Standards and, in particular, a technical standard for Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) which is a consortium of the seven largest food retailers in the world, and that is ISO22000:2005. All traceability (read NAIS) falls under the purview of Codex, the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) for global trade agreements.
The following excerpt from HR 2749 shows the fully interoperable global network already in existence regarding food and its production:
“Development of such guidelines shall take into account the utilization of existing unique identification schemes and compatibility with customs automated systems, such as integration with the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and the International Trade Data System (ITDS), and any successor systems.” (p. 142)
So it is clear that international standards and guidelines are implicit in this legislation. Note the usage of the command form SHALL. This isn’t a ‘might’, ‘may’ or in anyway a voluntary issue on the part of the Secretary. Then there is the section on Traceability. This is a code word in the National Animal Identification System and when one reads Sec.107 of this bill, it describes specific components of NAIS down to 48-hour trace-back, which cannot even be fantasized about with out individual animal identification.
“…..the Secretary shall issue regulations establishing a tracing system that enables the Secretary to identify each person who grows, produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, holds, or sells such food in as short a timeframe as practicable but no longer than 2 business days.” [note that it says “grows”] (p. 70)
and…
“……use a unique identifier for each facility owned or operated by such person for such purpose…” (p. 69)
So we have PIN (Premises Identification Number) and 48-hour traceback harmonizing with international standards and guidelines along with this:
“….‘‘(C) COORDINATION REGARDING FARM IMPACT.—In issuing regulations under this paragraph that will impact farms, the Secretary ‘‘(i) shall coordinate with the Secretary of Agriculture; and ‘‘(ii) take into account the nature of the impact of the regulations on farms.” (p. 71)
Now that I’ve killed you with legalese, it’s time to let you find out just what these international standards and guidelines mean to those engaged in agriculture in this country.
“GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES”
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are not a standard in and of themselves. They are a combination of standards and guidelines set forth by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO), through both the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) and Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) and IPPC to meet the certification and auditing side of the international trade aspects of the standards set forth. The OIE and Codex are charged with setting global standards and guidelines for the member countries of the WTO to meet and satisfy the SPS (Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary), TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) and Equivalency agreements of the WTO for participation in international trade. Both the OIE and CODEX have guidelines for traceability that, with the passage of HR2749 into law, would be written into regulations governing all interstate commerce within the boundaries of the United States. The components of traceability are the pillars of NAIS that many of us have become so familiar with in the course of the battle over the past several years. Those being 1) Premises Identification 2) Animal Identification and 3) Animal Tracking. You can’t have traceability under international standards without having those three components.
One of the main issues in the implementation of these standards and guidelines within a member nation of the WTO is that they must have a legal framework through which to regulate and enforce these guidelines and standards. HR 2749 would meet the criteria for that legal framework by way of the excerpts from the bill above.
In the OIE’s “Guide to Good Farming Practices” the management of a livestock facility are clearly spelled out. Some of these recommendations that would become defacto law in the US under agency rule-making on passage of HR2749 (GGFP delineates international guidelines for food safety at the farm level) are:
– For each animal…Require and keep all commercial and health documents enabling their exact itinerary to be traced from their farm or establishment to their final destination…
-Keep a record of all persons entering the farm…..
-Keep medical certificates of persons working with the animals……
-Keep documents proving the water you give to the animals meets specific criteria
-Keep samples of all feed given to the animals
-Keep all documents from official inspections
-Keep records of treatment and procedures on all animals (castration, disbudding, calving, medications, etc.)
-Prevent domestic animals (cats and dogs) from roaming in and around livestock buildings
-Place all these documents at the disposal of the competent authority (Veterinary Services) when it conducts farm visits.
Some of the other guidelines and standards that would come into play after the implementation of traceability for all agricultural products would be : (from FAO COAG/17 “Development of a Framework for Good Agricultural Practices”) “the adoption and implementation of international standards and codes for which Codex food safety standards and guidelines have been designed, and the associated capacity building, training, development and field implementation in the context of the different production systems and agro-ecozones. These include: Enhancing Food Quality and Safety by Strengthening Handling, Processing and Marketing in the Food Chain (214A9); Capacity Building and Risk Analysis Methodologies for Compliance with Food Safety Standards and Pesticide Control (215P1); Food Quality Control and Consumer Protection (221P5); Food Safety Assessment and Rapid Alert System (221P6); and Food Quality and Safety Throughout the Food Chain (221P8).”*
To be certified as meeting the requirements of “GAP”, which is synonymous with being in compliance with international standards and guidelines, we can check out GlobalGAP.org. This is “the” certifying methodology for international trade in ag products. Here are a few excerpts from their 122-page general regulations booklet that has links to checklists for those who would be certifiers and auditors under the principles of GAP. This is an organization, not a governing body under WTO agreements, but working with nations and businesses to meet the criteria regarding these GAP practices for international trade. Here is a bare minimum of excerpts from their regulation document:
-(ii) Developing a Good Agricultural Practice (G.A.P.) framework for benchmarking existing assurance schemes and standards including traceability. (iii) Providing guidance for continuous improvement and the development and understanding of best practice. (iv) Establish a single, recognised framework for independent verification.
-Production Location: A production unit or group of production units, covered by the same ownership, operational procedures, farm management, and GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) decision-making activities.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracing product from the producer’s immediate customer back to the producer and certified farm.
-Within the context of GLOBALGAP (EUREPGAP) Integrated Farm Assurance this means tracking product from the producer to his immediate customer.
In simple English, which appears to be highly lacking in all these guidelines, it means NAIS for everything, and for anyone who wishes to be engaged in agriculture….Remember the “grows” phrase from the earlier excerpt from HR2749. Now let’s look at some of the ‘exception’ clauses in HR2749. This bill is a terrifically crafty piece of legislation that is designed to cloud the reader’s understanding of the impact of the law being proposed in it. All of the exception clauses give the exception under this Act so long as you are ready to be regulated under a different Act. We’ll just look at a couple of these clauses to allow you to get the gist of the lack of exception available through the exceptions….
“EXCEPTIONS”
Farms- A farm is exempt from the requirements of this Act to the extent such farm raises animals from which food is derived that is regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or the Egg Products Inspection Act.
‘‘(I) such an operation that packs or holds food, provided that all food used in such activities is grown, raised, or consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership;
‘‘(II) such an operation that manufactures or processes food, provided that all food used in such activities is consumed on such farm or another farm under the same ownership; (pages9 and10)
Thus, if you grow everything you feed and consume everything you grow, and use no minerals or salts that you don’t mine yourself, you may be exempt. Or, in plain English, don’t even try to make a living in agriculture if you won’t comply with these rules.
One more exception to contend with here is:
‘(A) DIRECT SALES BY FARMS- Food is exempt from the requirements of this subsection if such food is–
‘(i) produced on a farm; and
‘(ii) sold by the owner, operator, or agent in charge of such farm directly to a consumer or to a restaurant or grocery store. (page 71)
This sounds good. However, there are several problems with this that are not evident without some knowledge of how things are done in the traditional avenues open for market to growers. First of all, cattle, whom you may recall as the primary target of the NAIS Business Plan, are often sold either at auction barns or via potload to feedlots. It is illegal to sell beef directly from the farm to consumers in every state that I know of. People often will sell a calf ready to butcher in halves or quarters to people and deliver the calf to the slaughter facility for the consumer, but this is far from the normal route of commerce in cattle or other species of meat animal. Even if you can securely wedge your operation into this particular exemption, they get you later via the record keeping section of this bill:
‘(E) RECORDKEEPING REGARDING PREVIOUS SOURCES AND SUBSEQUENT RECIPIENTS- For a food or person covered by a limitation or exemption under subparagraph (B), (C), or (D), the Secretary shall require each person who produces, receives, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, distributes, or holds such food to maintain records to identify the immediate previous sources of such food and its ingredients and the immediate subsequent recipients of such food.
‘(F) RECORDKEEPING BY RESTAURANTS AND GROCERY STORES- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), restaurants and grocery stores shall keep records documenting the farm that was the source of the food.
‘(G) RECORDKEEPING BY FARMS- For a food covered by an exemption under subparagraph (A), farms shall keep records, in electronic or non-electronic format, for at least 6 months documenting the restaurant or grocery store to which the food was sold.’ (pp. 74-75)
So being exempt means you are required to keep records. Keeping required records means you could be required to release those records. So how exempt can a person get under this legislation? Especially when the slaughter facilities will all be regulated unless the USDA already regulates them?
PENALTIES AND FINES
Then of course, as with any law, there are the fines and penalties. These are from $20,000 to $1,000,000 per violation. (p. 122)
NO JUDICIAL REVIEW
There is also the change under the seizure section that takes away judicial overview…(double quotations indicate amending language)
…….procedure in cases under this section shall conform, as nearly as may be, to the procedure in admiralty; except that on demand of either party any issue of fact joined in any such case shall be tried by jury, “”and except that, with respect to proceedings relating to food, Rule G of the Supplemental Rules of Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions shall not apply in any such case, exigent circumstances shall be deemed to exist for all seizures brought under this section, and the summons and arrest warrant shall be issued by the clerk of the court without court review in any such case””…… (p. 116)
So we can just throw out that pesky Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of probable cause as well via this wording from page 117:
by striking ‘‘credible evidence or information indicating’’ and inserting ‘‘reason to believe’’;
There are many other dangerous aspects to HR 2749, like seizures, quarantines, and licensing and whistle blower provisions, but this should leave no doubt that this bill will indeed affect farms and has the potential to affect even home food production if an agency decides to apply the international risk analysis schemes to that venue. This bill opens a huge regulatory nightmare that is only evident when one knows what the international guidelines and standards consist of in regard to agriculture. Understanding those, it is highly unlikely that they will issue regulations that keep things as they are now.
Now, the questions that everyone involved in agriculture, meaning everyone who eats, must ask themselves are these:
Can regulating, fining and destroying the freedom of people to grow food create food safety?
Have the impacts of so-called “Free Trade” on this nation been beneficial for the citizens of this country?
Have food safety concerns increased or decreased since we have begun to import more food under these trade agreements?
And ultimately, does the US Constitution provide for the voidance of the Bill of Rights to participate in global trade?
My copy of the Constitution clearly does not allow for any law to void the Bill of Rights which is unalienable and Constitutionally guaranteed. It’s time to let our Federal representatives know in no uncertain terms, that everything to do with governance ultimately comes down to the consent of the governed, and we will not consent to being run by international agencies.
========end==========
My deep thanks to Paul Griepentrog, who helped in going through the legislation and many of the ramifications and amendments to current law under this Act.