USDA Admits Exterminating Birds, Crops, and Bees

WorldTruthTV

The USDA has been under fire recently for its admitted assault against nature, after multiple investigations have uncovered its deliberate tampering with both plants and animals alike. One such investigation has put an end to the mystery surrounding the death of millions of birds, with USDA documents revealing the organization’s role in the massive slaughter. In addition to the mass bird killings, it turns out the USDA was fully aware that a highly-popular herbicide chemical was a known bee-killer, which may have aided the bee decline. The USDA has also threatened the genetic integrity of the nation’s crops. Information has surfaced regarding the USDA’s illegal approval of Monsanto’s biotech crop, sugar beets. These crimes are simply an excerpt from the long list of USDA crimes that are continually being exposed.

In December of 2010, mystery struck the world. Reports of mass fish and bird die-offs were coming in from Texas to Sweden. The first occurrence in the series of strange events started in Arkansas, where 3,000 birds fell from the sky. In the following days and weeks, similar incidents were reported with no solid explanation. The reason has now been found, thanks to documents found on the USDA’s website. Claiming to be protecting farmers from predators, the birds were victims of a little-known government program. Like millions of other animals since the Bye Bye Blackbird program was created in the 1960?s, the birds were poisoned and killed for being considered a nuisance to farmers. It is important to take note that many of these animals don’t pose any immediate threat to farmers.

In the 1960?s the USDA established a program referred to as the Bye Bye Blackbird program. This program is solely responsible for the mass killings of what could ultimately be millions of birds across the nation. In 2009 alone the USDA poisoned and killed over 4 million birds. The documents state whether or not the deaths were intentional or unintentional on the government website. You can find extremely large numbers, such as 22,276 blackbirds marked as intentionally euthanized. Here is some data from the USDA itself:

Brown-headed cowbirds: 1,046,109 European Starlings: 1,259,714 Red-winged blackbirds: 965,889 Canadian Geese : 24,519 Pigeons: 96,297 Grackles: 93,210 Starlings European: 1,259,714 These numbers are simply the top for 2009. Let us not forget about all the other years animals have been killed since the 1960?s when the program was first created.

According to Natural News :

A Nebraska farmer was apparently complaining that the starlings were defecating in his feed meal. The answer to this conundrum apparently isn’t to cover your feed meal but rather call the USDA and ask them to poison thousands of birds. The USDA complied, apparently agreeing this was a brilliant idea. So they put out a poison called DRC-1339 and allowed thousands of birds to feed on that poison.

“Cows are supposed to eat grass. If you are running a cow operation where the birds are eating your grain and you think the birds are the problem, the real problem is that you’re feeding cows the wrong food! If you raise your cows on grass, the birds don’t get into the grain and you don’t have to poison the birds.

“You see, when one ecological element gets out of balance (feeding grain to cows, for example), it then causes another problem that must be dealt with in some other destructive way (such as poisoning the birds). This cycle of disharmony continues and escalates until entire ecosystems are out of whack. Then the USDA shows up with a pickup truck full of poison bait and goes to work poisoning animals. The solution isn’t to keep poisoning animals and trying to control populations through toxic chemicals but rather to return to holistic web-of-life farming methods that work in harmony with nature rather than treating nature as the enemy."

The government is committing what many people would call a crime. Killing mass amounts of animals via poison is a flagrant act of violence against nature that should not be tolerated or encouraged. People aren’t allowed to hunt in certain regions of the United States, but the government is allowed to kill off animals by the millions. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

In recent years the world honey bee population has plummeted in North America. This is important because bee pollination is crucial for the fertilization of many crops. Just as many potential explanations arose over the mysterious bird deaths, many different theories have been proposed to explain the bee decline. Electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate have all taken the heat of critics looking for answers. Recently, however, a document was leaked revealing that a bee-killing pesticide put in use by the EPA may be to blame. Adding to the controversy, more records have emerged showing that the USDA was fully aware of the pesticide's threat to not only bees, but humans. The two-month-old report released by the USDA itself unveiled that the toxic insecticide used on plants are not only a threat to insects’ central nervous systems, but are also a threat to the internal systems of humans.

Imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid family of pesticides introduced over the past 15 years, is likely to be responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the recently observed phenomenon in which bees abandon their hives en masse, according to the study by scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.

The study, to appear in the June issue of The Bulletin of Insectology, provides "convincing evidence" of the link between imidacloprid and CCD, claim the authors, led by Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology in the school's Department of Environmental Health. It follows two other widely publicised studies, from Britain and France, published last week in the journal Science, which strongly suggested that neonicotinoids were linked to the declines in bees and other pollinating insects seen in Europe and the US.

Neonicotinoids, which attack the central nervous system of insects, are considered by some scientists as dangerous to species which are not the compounds' principal targets, because they are "systemic" – meaning they do not just sit on the surface of a plant but are taken up into every part of it, including the pollen and nectar, where they can be ingested repeatedly by bees and other pollinating insects.

Twice in the past three years, the Government has been asked, on the basis of compelling evidence, to suspend the use of the new generation of neonicotinoid pesticides, until the increasingly worrying evidence that they are extremely harmful to bees and other pollinating insects has been shown to be unfounded.

The first occasion was in 2009, by a coalition of environmental groups led by Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity; the second was in 2011 by the Labour MP Martin Caton, after paper's disclosure that America's leading bee scientist had found a harmful link. On each occasion the request was ignored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Sugar Beets created by corporate giant Monsanto Company, who is leading the genetically modified food market, make up for about half of the nation's sugar supply. The approval of these beets was initially made in 2005, granting Monsanto the right to plant genetically modified sugar beets that could withstand sprayings of the herbicide marketed as Roundup. The entity responsible for the approval? The USDA. Unfortunately, the USDA hadn’t conducted a thorough review of the biotech crop, making the approval flagrantly illegal. To make matters more complicated, the USDA issued permits which allowed companies to plant seedlings that would later produce seed for future sugar beet crops. Judge White, the federal judge who deemed the approval illegal, issued that the seedlings be removed immediately. The immunity that the sugar beets possess against the herbicide being used on them is not exhibited by any other plant, or even humans. With excessive herbicide use comes more poisoned organisms consuming the sugar beets and thus becoming sickly. Additionally, conventional and organic crops are subject to contamination from an overflow of pesticides.

If you thought Monsanto’s lack of testing on their current GMO crops was bad before, prepare to now be blown away by the latest statement by the USDA. Despite links to organ damage and mutated insects, the USDA says that it is changing the rules so that genetically modified seed companies like Monsanto will get ‘speedier regulatory reviews. With the faster reviews, there will be even less time spent on evaluating the potential dangers. Why? Because Monsanto is losing sales with longer approval terms.

The changes were expected to take full effect in March when they’re published in the Federal Register. The USDA’s goal is to cut the approval time for GMO crops in half in order to speedily implement them into the global food supply. The current USDA process takes longer than they would like due to ‘public interest, legal challenges, and the challenges associated with the advent of national organic food standards‘ says USDA deputy administrator Michael Gregoire.

The USDA seems to be recklessly endangering life on this planet with its disregard for what it was created to protect. The reports and documents revealed in this article may very well be the tip of the iceberg. The recently-released document unveiling the bee decline is two years old, and is most likely not the last to be uncovered. It is only a matter of time before more secretive documents come out highlighting the USDA’s shameless lack of respect for life. The USDA has not been forced to openly admit to these claims due to a lack of mainstream media attention. It took investigative journalism to discover these documents and it will take future investigation to oust even more of the USDA’s corruption.

GMO giant hires retired cops to hunt down farmers

RT

GMO giants DuPont have contracted dozens of retired law enforcement officers to begin patrolling farms in the US next year to spot any potential intellectual property theft.

DuPont Co, the second-largest seed country in the world, is hoping to find farmers that have purchased contracts to use their genetically modified soybean seeds but have breached the terms of agreement by illegally using the product for repeat harvests. Should farmers replant GMO seeds licensed by DuPont, they could be sued for invalidating their contracts.

“Farmers are never going to get cheap access to these genetically engineered varieties,” Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, tells Bloomberg. “The biotech industry has trumped the legitimate economic interests of the farmer again by raising the ante on intellectual property.”

DuPont competitors Monsanto have been known to relentlessly sue small-time farmers who have been caught abusing their own patented GMO products, but the latest maneuver is being considered by some a form of intimidation. DuPont has cut a deal with Saskatchewan-based Agro Protection International, a company that contracts mostly retired police officers to patrol potential violations of IP law.

“Everyone always goes to the idea that we are trying to intimidate people and nothing could be further from the truth,” Agro President Dennis Birtles tells Bloomberg. “We are trying to create deterrence.”

According to that report, Agro already has around 45 employees patrolling farms in Canada, and a DuPont senior manager has confirmed to the media that around three dozen will start searching for IP violations in the United States starting next year.

Reached for comment by Bloomberg, Randy Schlatter from DuPont’s intellectual property program office said the contract with Agro will help their customers in the end, because honoring contracts will allow the GMO giants to continue to develop new products. Currently they have more than 225 soybean seed patents.

“Our challenge is to get customers to understand the fact that strong intellectual property protection is a benefit that ends up at the customer level,” Schlatter says. “If we can’t make a profit, we can’t invest and we can’t bring out new products.”

The GMO Film Project: In Defense of Our Seeds

Today in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly participate in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings. Massive agro-chemical companies like Monsanto (Agent Orange) and Dow (Napalm) are feeding us genetically-modified food, GMO's, that have never been fully tested and aren't labeled. This small handful of corporations are tightening their grip on the world's food supply—buying, modifying, and patenting seeds to ensure total control over everything we eat.

The GMO Film Project (Untitled) tells the story of a father's discovery of GMO's through the symbolic act of poor Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake. After a journey to Haiti to learn why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to our food, what we are feeding our families, and what is at stake for the global food supply unfolds in a trip across the United States in search of answers.

Are we at a tipping point? Is it time to take back our food? The encroaching darkness of unknown health and environmental risks, seed take over, chemical toxins, and food monopoly meets with the light of a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a burgeoning movement to take back what we have lost.

We still have time to heal the planet, feed the world, and live sustainably. But we have to start now.

A film by Compeller Pictures http://gmofilm.com

Monsanto's seedy legacy

Agricultural giant Monsanto is best known for their production of pesticides and genetically modified foods, but they have a controversial history as a chemical company with a slew of toxic cover ups. In addition to their battle against small farmers, the newest buzz about the corporation is the speculation that their GM seeds are linked to the die off of bees.

YouTube

Genetically Modified Grass Kills Cattle by Producing Warfare Chemical Cyanide

Nation of Change
by Anthony Gucciardi

Another report of genetically modified creations taking the lives of livestock has hit the media, and this time genetically modified grass has been identified as the culprit according to CBS News. Shockingly (and quite disturbingly), the GM grass actually produced toxic cyanide and sent the cattle into a life-ending fit that included painful bellowing and convulsions. The deaths have led to a federal investigation centered in Central Texas, where the cattle had resided.

Just east of Austin, the cows lived on an 80-acre ranch owned by Jerry Abel. Abel says that the fields were used for over 15 years for cattle grazing and hay, and that the genetically modified grass was ‘tested’ previously and should have been ‘perfect’. The GM grass however, known as Tifton 85, appears have been producing toxic cyanide. Used as a genocidal agent in World War 2 by the Germans and considered to be an extremely dangerous substance internationally, it is extremely concerning that cyanide is now being produced by once harmless grass thanks to the modification process.

The 18 cattle went off to enjoy some ‘fresh’ new genetically modified grass, when Abel says they went into a fit of convulsions and shrieks. He explains:

“When our trainer first heard the bellowing, he thought our pregnant heifer may be having a calf or something,” said Abel. “But when he got down here, virtually all of the steers and heifers were on the ground. Some were already dead, and the others were already in convulsions.”

Within 15 hours of this incident, all of the cattle had died as a result of the grass ‘suddenly’ producing cyanide and therefore throwing them into a lethal fit. According to USDA scientists, it may be the result of a mutation — the same kind of mutation that has been seen in many of Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready crops.

What’s more is the fact that many other farmers are now testing their grounds and also finding the presence of cyanide. While there is not yet a large number of reports concerning cattle deaths from cyanide, it was recently revealed that one large biotech company Syngenta had been covering up further animal deaths from genetically modified corn.

Monsanto-Funded Science Denies Emerging Roundup-Cancer Link

GreenMedInfo
by Sayer Ji

Monsanto-funded research has been proliferating as uncontrollably as their genetically modified (GM) plants, and the bugs increasingly resistant to them.

Two studies have appeared in scientific journals in the past eight months, both funded by Monsanto, and both discrediting a Roundup herbicide-cancer link.

The context within which these new studies are appearing is the growing body of experimental research indicating that the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, along with the surfactants and related "inactive" ingredients found within glyphosate-based formulations, cause genetic damage associated with cancer initiation, and at levels far below those used agricultural applications and associated with real-world exposures.

This has put manufacturers and proponents of glyphosate, as well as "Roundup Ready" GM plants in a vulnerable position.

If, the precautionary principle is employed and a much-needed reclassification of glyphosate as a class III carcinogen to a class II or I occurs, the increasingly global dominance of GM-based food crop systems will come to a screeching, regulation-induced halt.

So, given the threat posed by non-industry funded research on glyphosate’s toxicity, Monsanto has been putting money into research and development -- but not in the reputable sense of the phrase -- bypaying for research to develop the storyline that, despite damning research to contrary, Roundup is still safe.

The newest study, published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology titled, "Epidemiologic studies on glyphosate and cancer: A review," declared its glaring conflict of interest in the following manner:

Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors have disclosed the funding source for this research. JSM [study author] has served has a paid consultant to Monsanto Company. Final decisions regarding the content of the manuscript were made solely by the four authors.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri

Even if no such a conflict was explicitly declared, industry-funded research is almost exclusively positive, minimizing or denying harms to exposed populations associated with the products they are evaluating.

A salient example is the recent summary of 176 studies by Baker[viii] which found that published research looking into the impact of Bisphenol A on human health resulted in exclusively pro-industry findings:

Funding Harm No Harm Industry 0 13 (100%) Independent (e.g. government) 152 (86%) 11 (14%) Adding to the problem, the editorial boards of some of the journals within which the questionable science is printed are populated by paid consultants of the very industries they publish ostensibly impartial research on.

For example, the editor of the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology withinwhich latest Monsanto-funded glyphosate-cancer review was published, Gio Batta Gori, is notorious for being a tobacco industry consultant and for publishing junk science in his journal, which has been called: "A Scientific Journal with Industrial Bias as Its Specialty."

His journal published research in 2003, provided by the same company, Exponent, which employs three of the researchers who authored the latest glyphosate-cancer study, as well as one author on the 2011 glyphosate-cancer study, on the purported non-carcinogenicity of dioxin, a highly toxic ingredient in Agent Orange.

Given these obvious conflicts of interest, from the bottom up and the top down, the time has come for people to enact reform with their dollars and their forks, and when worthwhile ballot initiatives emerge, their votes.

#1: Stop buying anything not explicitly labeled non-GMO or certified organic, which amounts to the same assurance.

#2: Grow it yourself, or support local organic growers.

#3: Support the California Ballot Initiative to label GMOs.

Feds to farmers: Grow GMO beets or face sugar shortage

Grist

If you’re Monsanto, you’re probably really proud of your genetically modified (GMO) sugar beets. Introduced in 2008, the beets are the company’s most recent Roundup Ready product genetically engineered to withstand the direct application of the herbicide glyphosate. Immediately successful, they took over the sugar beet market within two years. By 2010, 95 percent of the sugar beets grown in the U.S. were Monsanto’s genetically modified variety.

This matters to us all because about 50 percent of white sugar sold here is made from sugar beets. In other words, unless that bag of sugar you just bought is labeled “Certified Organic” or “100 percent cane sugar,” it almost certainly contains sugar made from GMO crops.

There was, of course, a reason for Monsanto’s success with sugar beets — and not just because it was able to leverage its market power to encourage farmers to adopt the new seed. Once again, it’s a weed problem.

Weeds in sugar beet fields have developed resistance to the chemicals farmers have been using for years, but they’re not resistant to glyphosate, which hasn’t been used very often in conventional sugar beet cultivation. As a result, these Roundup Ready seeds allowed farmers to use a chemical — glyphosate — that their weeds hadn’t really been exposed to and thus represented a bit of a game-changer for sugar beet farmers who had been left out of Big Ag’s glyphosate party.

Despite its instant success, Monsanto’s product hit a few speed bumps in 2010. That year, a federal judge revoked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) approval for the seed in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety on the basis that the agency violated the law by failing to perform a full environmental impact statement for the seed. This is a critical oversight given the risks of genetic contamination of conventional and organic seeds by the GMO seeds through wind-blown pollen, as well as the current superweed crisis caused by overuse of glyphosate.

The problem with the judge’s order, however, was that Monsanto had so successfully crowded out sugar beet seed competitors that once he ruled the beets “illegal” it quickly became clear that there were no conventional sugar beet seeds to be found. So America faced the prospect of total Armageddon the zombie apocalypse cats and dogs sleeping together a 20 percent reduction in that year’s sugar crop. In response — and in defiance of the federal judge’s order — the USDA allowed farmers to plant GM sugar beets anyway.

Well, I’m happy to report that our long national nightmare is over. At last, the USDA has released its full environmental review of Roundup Ready sugar beets. In it, the agency describes the risks for genetic contamination as well as the likelihood of increased herbicide resistance in weeds that will result from unrestricted planting of the beets. And as a result, the USDA is recommending full “deregulation” of GMO sugar beets, which will allow for their unrestricted planting.

Wait. What?

The environmental review puts a high priority on the absence of alternative seeds and the potential disruption to sugar supplies — an absence that has been shaped by consolidation in the seed industry. It also observes that any weed resistance that develops if more Roundup Ready seed is planted can be countered by applying more types of herbicide! The chemical treadmill FTW!

As this review illustrates, the agency behaves as if its “hands are tied” on GM seed approvals. As George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety and a plaintiff in the sugar beet trial, describes it, the agency claims “regulatory impotence.” The USDA’s arguments in the recent court case involving GM alfalfa echo this sentiment. In short, the agency asserts that it lacks authority to fully assess the risks of GM seeds because Congress has ruled that the agency can’t let the larger potential impacts enter its analysis.

Kimbrell isn’t buying it. “We strongly disagree with USDA’s claims of regulatory impotence,” he told me in an email. This claim, he added, is “contrary to the statute and Supreme Court, in addition to being extremely bad policy. USDA’s job is to protect all farmers and the environment, not just biotech special interests.”

It’s hard, for example, to reconcile the environmental review’s dry discussion of superweeds in GM sugar beet fields with the far more dire warnings that came out of the recent National Academy of Science summit on the topic. And it’s also hard to take seriously the USDA’s claim that farmers will take voluntary steps to ensure GMO sugar beets aren’t planted too closely to conventional ones (or related species like chard and other beets).

But here’s the really bad news: Full “deregulation” of the seed will eliminate existing distance requirements between fields of conventional crops and the GMO crops, which are meant to help prevent genetic contamination (aka gene flow). And while the USDA maintains that farmers will continue to observe these limits on their own, farmers have demonstrated that the temptation to plant more and more widely tends to outweigh all concern about contaminating the plots of their neighbors.

The Center for Food Safety is still reviewing the USDA’s 800-page decision. That said, advocates have unearthed past evidence of sloppy science and close ties to Monsanto within the arm of the USDA responsible for producing the review. And history does not offer much reassurance that the agency is putting its best effort into a full examination of the risks from further expansion of GMO seed.

In the end, maybe the answer lies not within the USDA but outside it. Perhaps farmers and food processors will be less enamored of GMO sugar beets if California passes the GMO food labeling law currently on the ballot there. Then bags of sugar with the phrase “contains genetically modified ingredients” will do what the agency charged with “protecting all farmers and the environment” simply won’t — and that’s to give farmers pause in embracing crops that offer short-term convenience and long-term complications.

Related: USDA Allows GMO Sugar Beet Planting Even After a Landmark Court Decision Says No

NaturalSociety Exclusive: Letter Shows Monsanto Planted GMOs Before USDA Approval

Natural Society


Did Monsanto actually plant genetically modified alfalfa before it was deregulated by the USDA? There is some shocking evidence that, until recently, was withheld from the public showing that Monsanto’s genetically altered alfalfa may have been set free in 2003 — a full two years or more before it was deregulated in 2005. In a letter, obtained by NaturalSociety with permission to post for public viewing, it becomes clear that the USDA may have turned a blind eye to the entire situation, allowing widespread GMO contamination of GMO-free crops.

Amazingly, the letter actually proves that the USDA was fully aware of the situation. In order to fully understand the intricate details of this event, it is first important to understand a few key factors regarding alfalfa and its connection to the entire food supply.

Alfalfa is a perennial plant that grows for more than 2 years and may not need to be replanted each year like annuals. Because it is a perennial plant, it is exceptionally vulnerable to contamination. Interestingly, the modified alfalfa — created by Monsanto in partner with a group known as Forage Genetics — was the first perennial plant to be deregulated for open planting by the USDA. But did Monsanto unleash the plant before this occurred?

This is very serious because it is only a matter of time before alfalfa across America could be corrupted with Monsanto’s patented genetically modified trait. Organic meat and dairy could be tainted when animals are fed the modified alfalfa as well, threatening the very integrity of the organic food supply. What’s more, the contamination of natural alfalfa could be nearly impossible — if not entirely impossible — to remedy, so it could actually fracture the genetic stability of the entire crop on a global scale.

Shocking Letter Reveals Monsanto’s Contamination Dates Back 2 Years Before Deregulation

A letter from Cal/West Seeds shows that evidence of contamination was withheld and the USDA turned a blind eye to proof of contamination in 2005 which shows it was planted at least two years before it was initially deregulated in 2005. As you can see for yourself, the official letter states:

We first discovered the unintended presence of the Roundup Ready gene in our conventional alfalfa seeds in 2005. It was identified in one of our foundation seed production lots grown in California. We tested the foundation seed lot priot to shipping it to a producer who intended to plant it for organic seed production.

In another telling segment, the author writes:

We detected the presence of the … Roundup Ready gene in both our foundation seed and certified seed prior to deregulation.

In order to protect the safety of the individual, some further contents cannot be divulged. Remember in the past, those who have stood up against Monsanto have received anonymous death threats — in one case, the threats were directed towards a mother and her children.

This video documents the timeline of events that led to the deregulation of Monsanto & Forage Genetics’ GMO alfalfa that is contaminating natural alfalfa. As the video explains, the lawyers representing the farmers against Monsanto failed to hold an evidentiary hearing so the injunction (ban) against planting GMO alfalfa was removed and the case was sent back to the lower district court. The lawyers pursued no further action on this case.



Contamination levels are still very low, but will undoubtedly increase over time with unexpected results (like superweeds), so stopping the further planting of GM plants like alfalfa is of high concern. Furthermore, it would set a precedent for banning other GMO perennial plants as well — a monumental move in the legislative fight against GMOs. This letter, compounded with the other evidence presented in this article, is paramount in displaying just how serious of an issue genetic contamination is. What’s more, the USDA appears to have known the entire time. It’s time to spread the word.