Monsanto, Dupont Dump Millions to Stop GMO Labeling
Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association
ESSAY OF THE WEEK
Monsanto, Dupont Spend $8.2M to Buy Washington Election
We knew they’d be back. With their bald-faced lies. Their brazen disregard for your health and our environment. Their arrogant plans to deny you the right to know what franken-ingredients they’re cooking up in their labs and disguising as “food” on your grocery shelves.
And their deep, deep pockets.
Sure enough, they are back. This week, Monsanto and Dupont dumped millions more of their GMO-tainted dollars into the campaign to defeat I-522, Washington State’s GMO labeling initiative. To date, Monsanto has ponied up $4.8 million. Dupont as kicked in $3.4 million. In all, so far, the NO on 522 campaign has raised more than $11 million. All from a handful of corporations. Not a penny from people like you.
Who’s supporting the YES on I-522 campaign? You. Your family. Your neighbors. Your friends. Tens of thousands of us. To their four chemical companies and one big front group representing junk food makers.
The polls show us winning in Washington. But the opposition is trying to whittle away at our poll numbers by rallying newspaper editors (who take advertising dollars from biotech and Big Food) and Big Ag trade groups to their side. Soon they’ll launch a full-on media blitz to try to scare voters into taking their side.
We recovered from, were galvanized around, the loss in California last year. Can we lose this battle again this year and still win the war? Let’s not go there.
Please make a donation today, however large or small, to support GMO labeling. Every dollar you donate here will go directly to the YES on I-522 campaign. Thank you!
Donate to Washington’s GMO Labeling Initiative!
ACTION ALERT
Home Depot and Lowe’s: Stop Selling Bee-Killing Garden Plants!
You thought that pretty flowering plant you bought at the garden center might attract bees to your garden. But as it turns out, that lovely rose bush may actually be coated in the very type of pesticide that’s killing bees.
A new study co-authored by the Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Pesticide Research Institute found that seven out of 13 samples of garden plants purchased at top retailers in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area and Minneapolis contain neurotoxic pesticides known as neonicotinoids. Neonics, made by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, are the fastest-growing class of synthetic pesticides.
They’re also linked to the mass die-off of honeybees.
How do we get bee-killing plants out of garden centers? We start by asking the CEOs of two of the largest national chains – Home Depot and Lowe’s – to stop selling them.
Here’s the plan. We’re teaming up with FOE, Center for Food Safety, SumOfUs, and a number of other organizations. We’re asking our members (that’s you) to help us gather 300,000 signatures. When we reach that goal, we’re going to meet with the CEOs of Home Depot (Frank Blake) and Lowe’s (Robert Niblock) and ask them to do what garden centers in the U.K. have done – commit to getting bee-killing garden plants out of their stores.
About 100 crop species provide 90 percent of food globally. Of those species, 71 are pollinated by bees. In the U.S. alone, a full one-third of the food supply depends on pollination from bees. Can we afford not to pressure Home Depot and Lowe’s into getting neonics out of our gardens?
TAKE ACTION: Ask Home Depot and Lowe’s to Stop Selling Bee-Killing Garden Plants
OCA IN ACTION
GMOs: ‘Words to Use, Words to Lose'
You say “genetically altered,” they say “enhanced.” You say “pesticides,” they say “crop control.” They say “improved nutrition,” you say . . . “say what?”
The OCA and the International Food Information Council (IFIC) were invited to give dueling presentations this week at the American Frozen Food Institute's (AFFI) Government Action Summit. Representing the OCA, Alexis Baden-Mayer picked apart the IFIC’s publication titled: “Food Biotechnology: A Communicator’s Guide to Improving Understanding.” The “Guide” contains a list of “Words to Use, Words to Lose” when talking about (obfuscating about?) GMOs.
Who is the IFIC dispensing advice to with its misinformation guide? Monsanto, Dow, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Mars . . . the usual suspects who oppose your right to know about GMOs. As if they needed the IFIC’s help when it comes to lying to consumers.
-522 UPDATE
Endorse! Write Letters! Donate! Let’s Win!
The latest poll shows 66 percent of Washington voters lean toward voting YES on I-522, the GMO labeling initiative on the November 5 ballot. It’s good news. But it comes during the same week that the Biotech Bullies and the Junk Food Giants are ramping up their campaign, and filling up their coffers as they gear up to try to kill another labeling initiative.
We need everyone, including you, on board. Especially this week, National I-522 Solidarity Week.
We’re up to almost 36,000 endorsements. Can we hit 50,000 by midnight Sunday? Endorse the I-522 campaign
Other ways you can help:
Volunteer to call Washington voters
Download Lies and Truths about I-522 and share it with friends
If you live in Washington, write a letter to the editor
ORGANIC TRANSITIONS
Take Back Your Community with Food Sovereignty Laws!
Fed up with companies like Monsanto and Syngenta invading your community with their poison-drenched GMO crops? Don’t think the state or federal government should have the right to stop you from buying raw milk from the farm next door?
Why not join the Food Sovereignty Movement, a huge global network of citizens and farmers, fishermen and small-scale growers, who are reclaiming local control over food and agricultural policies by writing their own laws?
Four counties in California and one in Washington State have already banned GMO crops. Counties and communities in Oregon and Hawaii are soon to follow. And Maine is leading the way in protecting local farmers, and food producers and retailers, from the unreasonable constraints imposed by federal and state regulators. Learn how you can lead the charge against corporate corruption in your community.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
GMO OMG: Is It the End of Food?
We don’t always see eye-to-eye with Grist writer Nathanael Johnson when it comes to GMOs. But we like the new documentary, GMO OMG. And Johnson’s interview with the film’s director, Jeremy Seifert, is worth a read. Seifert explains in his own words what drove him to document his family’s struggle to live and eat, without being part of an unhealthy, unjust, destructive food system.
GMO OMG opens in New York tomorrow, September 13, at Cinema Village
22 East 12th Street; on September 20, in Hollywood, Calif. at Arena Cinema, 625 N. Las Palmas Ave.; and on Sept. 27 in Seattle, Wash., SIFF Center, 305 Harrison Street.
LITTLE BYTES
Essential Reading for the Week
Bt Crops Could Be Monsanto's Greatest Failure
Poll: Big Lead for Food-labeling Initiative in WA
Food Babe TV: Do You Eat Beaver Butt?
One Weird Trick to Fix Farms Forever
More Communities Succeed in Eliminating Water Fluoridation
EPA to American People: 'Let Them Eat Monsanto's Roundup Ready Cake'
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ronniecummins@organicconsumers.org