‘Betting The Farm’ featured in this month’s Do Something Reel Film Festival
Sustainable Food News

Whole Foods Market, Inc., the world’s largest retailer of organic and natural foods, on Tuesday said the January featured film in its Do Something Reel Film Festival is called “Betting The Farm,” which details a group of dairy farmers faced with a tough decision after they are dropped by their national milk company.

Eight organic dairy farmers in rural Maine are forced to either quit farming altogether or find a new way of doing business. The farmers take a chance and join forces to form a local milk company, Maine’s Own Organic Milk Co. or MOO Milk, in the hope that their small-scale farming model will get them a fair price for their milk. Read Full Article »

FDA Seeks Public Comment
Comments due February 25, 2013

FDA poised to approve genetically engineered salmon despite unknown risks to human health.
Inevitable accidental release of transgenic fish into the wild could devastate native fish populations and ecosystems!

The DNA of the top fish has been genetically engineered to produce growth hormones all the time for its entire life. People who eat this fish will be eating this DNA, along with the growth hormones.

Despite overwhelming opposition from citizens and public interest groups to genetically engineered (GE) food, including 400,000 public comments opposing GE salmon, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced December 26, 2012 that it is prepared to give transgenic salmon its final stamp of approval. Read Full Article »

Forbes
Jon Entine, Contributor

Will the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy’s John Holdren investigate the White House after violations of the Executive Office guarantee of science integrity—or should he be investigated? The Genetic Literacy Project reports.

Questions are emerging about the breakdown of the federal government’s science integrity process in the wake of the Food & Drug Administration’s long-delayed release of its approval of the first genetically modified animal for human consumption.

The AquAdvantage salmon developed by AquaBounty Technologies of Massachusetts—an Atlantic salmon modified with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon so it grows to maturity faster—had been winding its way through the federal approval process for 17 years. Two years ago, the FDA had said it was going to release its environmental assessment, the final document in the approval process, within weeks. It was finally and quietly posted on the FDA’s website only last Friday—just hours before the long holiday weekend—and published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. Read Full Article »

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jim Gerritsen
(207) 429-9765
Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association

Farmers to Attend January 10th US Court of Appeals Oral Argument in Appeal of Dismissal OSGATA et al v. Monsanto;
10am Citizen’s Assembly for Family Farmers to Follow

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 4, 2013 -   Dozens of family farmers, Plaintiffs in the landmark lawsuit Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al v. Monsanto,will travel from across America to Washington, D.C. next week to take on Monsanto and demand the right to farm. They will attend the January 10th Oral Argument in the Appeal of Dismissal to be aired before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. A Citizen’s Assembly in support of family farmers at 10am in Lafayette Square will coincide with the beginning of the Oral Argument inside the court room.

“Our farmers want nothing to do with Monsanto,” declared Maine certified organic seed farmer, Jim Gerritsen, President of lead Plaintiff Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association. “We are not customers of Monsanto. We don’t want their seed. We don’t want their gene-spliced technology. We don’t want their trespass onto our farms. We don’t want their contamination of our crops. We don’t want to have to defend ourselves from aggressive assertions of patent infringement because Monsanto refuses to keep their pollution on their side of the fence. We want justice.” Read Full Article »

The Ecologist
By Peter Melchett

The pro-GM lobby has sought to take the ‘scientific high-ground’ by positioning itself as the voice of reason and progress, while painting its opponents as unsophisticated ‘anti-science’ luddites. In a scathing response Peter Melchett turns the tables.

Powerful forces in Western society have been promoting genetic engineering (now usually genetic modification – GM) in agricultural crops since the mid-1990s. They have included many governments, in particular those of the USA and UK, powerful individual politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair, scientific bodies like the UK’s Royal Society, research councils, successive UK Government chief scientists, many individual scientists, and companies selling GM products. They have ignored the views of citizens, and most sales of GM food have relied on secrecy – denying consumers information on what they are buying (20 US States are currently embroiled in fierce battles over GM labeling, strenuously opposed by Monsanto). Worse, they have consistently promoted GM in ways which are not only unscientific, but which have been positively damaging to the integrity of science. Read Full Article »