http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob421.html

Read PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Victory in Vermont! Earth Day is coming up next Tuesday. This year, Mother Earth has at least one thing to celebrate—the beginning of the end of Monsanto’s evil empire. Yesterday, Vermont passed H.112, this country’s first no-strings-attached law requiring the mandatory labeling of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), and outlawing the practice of labeling GMO-contaminated foods as “natural” or “all-natural.” With the passage of the Vermont GMO labeling law, after 20 years of struggle, it’s time to celebrate our common victory. But as we all know, the battle for a new food and farming system, and a sustainable future has just begun. Monsanto will likely sue Vermont. And lose. And the Gene and Junk Food Giants will still try to pass a federal law intended to strip Vermont, and every other state, of the right to pass GMO labeling laws. But we will fight back. And we will win. Read Ronnie’s essay Read the press release

Organic Consumers Association Statement on GMO Labeling Law Victory in Vermont

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29778.cfm

• Vermont Lawmakers Pass Country’s First No-Strings-Attached GMO Labeling Law 
  Organic Consumers Association, April 16, 2014 

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Millions Against Monsanto and our Genetic Engineering page.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2014
    
CONTACT: Organic Consumers Association, Katherine Paul, 207.653.3090

FINLAND, Minn. – Today, by a vote of 28-2, the Vermont state Senate passed H.112, a bill to require mandatory labeling of foods sold in Vermont that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The bill also makes it illegal to call any food product containing GMOs “natural” or “all natural.” Unlike bills passed last year in Maine and Connecticut, which require four or five other states to pass GMO labeling laws before they can be enacted, Vermont’s law contains no “trigger” clauses, making it the first “clean” GMO labeling law in the country.

The bill now goes back to the House which is expected to agree to the Senate’s amendments, then to Gov. Peter Shumlin who is expected to sign it. 

Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), issued the following statement:

Today’s victory in Vermont has been 20 years in the making. Ever since genetically modified crops and foods entered the U.S. food supply in the early 1990s, without adequate independent pre-market safety testing and without labels, U.S. consumers have fought to require the labeling of foods containing GMOs.

Consumer demand for mandatory labeling of GMOs spawned a national grassroots movement that has persevered despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the biotech and food industries to lobby state lawmakers in Vermont, and to fund anti-labeling campaigns in California (2012) and Washington State (2013).

Today, consumers and a number of principled legislators in Vermont made it clear to Monsanto, Coca-Cola and other opponents of consumers’ right to know: We will not back down. This movement is here to stay.

We expect that Monsanto will sue the state of Vermont in order to prevent enactment of H.112. We also expect that Monsanto will lose, and the law will go into effect on schedule, on July 1, 2016.

We expect that the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a multi-billion lobbying group representing more than 300 food, pesticide and drug makers, will try to pass their “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014,” introduced last week by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), intended to strip Vermont, and all other states, of their right to pass GMO labeling laws. And we expect that Congress will not pass this law, dubbed the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, which seeks to deny consumers the right to know if their food has been genetically engineered, and deny states the right to enact laws designed to protect public health.

Vermont’s landmark victory today will force food companies to either label GMOs in all states, or reformulate their products to be GMO-free in order to avoid stating “this product was produced using genetic engineering” on their packaging. When Oregon passes a citizens’ ballot initiative to label GMOs in November, as we believe it will, the biotech and food industries will have lost, beyond the shadow of a doubt, their battle to keep consumers in the dark.

The OCA has worked closely over the past several years with the pro-labeling grassroots movement in Vermont. Today we congratulate Vermont activists for their passionate pursuit of this law, Vermont lawmakers for having the courage to pass the law, and Vermont citizens for being the first in the country to have the benefit of GMO labels on their food. And we reaffirm our commitment to work with Oregon and other states to pass similar laws, and to fight any and all attempts by industry and/or Congress to overturn these laws.

For press inquiries, please contact Katherine Paul by email or phone: 207.653.3090

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability. The Organic Consumers Fund is a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic Consumers Association, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action.

Read PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Label GMOs? Or Ban Them? The introduction in the mid-nineties of genetically engineered crops into the U.S. food supply—with no independent safety-testing or labeling required—sparked a debate over how to drive these unhealthy andenvironmentally destructive “Frankenfoods” off the market. Some campaigners have called for an outright ban of GE crops. Others argue that strict mandatory labeling laws, similar to those in the EU, are all we need in order to rid the world of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Who’s right? A review of two decades of anti-GMO campaigning in North America and Europe suggests that mandatory labeling and bans, or GMO-free zones, should go hand-in-hand. And recent news about increased contamination of non-GMO crops by the growing number of USDA-approved GMO crops suggests that if we don’t implement labeling laws and bans sooner rather than later, we may run out of time to protect organic and non-GMO farmers and their fields. Read Ronnie’s essay Support GMO bans and labeling laws ORGANIC RETAIL & CONSUMER ALLIANCE Help Your Grocer Go GMO-Free In the spring of 2013, OCA asked consumers to nominate grocers who are doing a great job of protecting their customers’ health by saying no to GMOs (genetically modified organisms). From those nominations, we chose 12 overall winners of our Right to Know Grocers Contest. We call them the “Diligent Dozen.” The contest proved to be a great way to single out grocers across the country who are doing a heroic job of educating customers about GMOs, providing truthful labels on products containing GMOs, and working with manufacturers to get GMOs out of popular consumer products, including food, supplements and cosmetics. But the Right to Know Grocers Contest also proved to be a learning experience for us. From our interviews with more than 50 store staff, owners and managers, we learned what motivates them to educate consumers and provide non-GMO alternatives. We also learned about the challenges they face, and the strategies they’ve developed, in their quest to rid their shelves of foods containing GMOs. We took that information and created the Going GMO-Free Toolkit for Grocers. It includes: • Strategies for educating consumers • Sample GMO-free policy statements • Sample communications to manufacturers • Instructions for conducting a GMO audit • Insights into the challenges of finding non-GMO alternatives • Success stories Want to help your local grocer go GMO-Free? Share the toolkit with the store owner or manager, and let us know how your favorite retailer responds!  Download this Leaflet and Show it to Your Grocer Read the Going GMO-Free Toolkit for Grocers

Monsanto's ‘Science’ Doesn’t Add Up

Read PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Five New Reasons Monsanto’s ‘Science’ Doesn’t Add Up To hear the pesticide and junk food marketers of the world tell it, anyone who questions the value, legitimacy or safety of GMO crops is naïve, anti-science and irrational to the point of hysteria. But how long can Monsanto ignore the mounting actualscientific evidence that their technology is not only failing to live up to its promises, it's putting public health at risk? Jim Goodman, farmer, activist and member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board, recently wrote about Monsanto's deceptive use of the expression "sound science." But, 'sound science' has no scientific definition. It does not mean peer reviewed, or well documented research. 'Sound science' is only a term, an ideological term, used to support a particular point of view, policy statement or a technology. 'Sound science' is little more than the opinions of so-called "experts" representing corporate interests. Simply put, 'sound science' always supports the position of industry over people, corporate profit over food safety, the environment and public health. Here are five new reports and studies, published in the last two months, that blow huge holes in Monsanto's "sound science" story. Reports of everything from Monsanto's Roundup causing fatal, chronic kidney disease to how, contrary to industry claims, Roundup persists for years, contaminating soil, air and water. And oh-by-the-way, no, GMO crops will not feed the world, nor have they reduced the use of herbicides and pesticides.  Read the essay

Monsanto to win our hearts and minds, WTF?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob388.html

Read PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Winning Our Hearts and Minds? Monsanto and Big Food Pull Out the Big Guns Monsanto and Big Food are taking the battle for consumers’ hearts and minds to the next level. And it’s no coincidence that they’re pulling out the big guns just as the Washington State I-522 campaign to label genetically modified organisms in food products is gaining steam. Can industry front groups and slick public relations firms convince us that the products they’re peddling are not only safe, but good for us? Will the millions they spend on websites and advertorials pay off? You be the judge. The freshly launched GMOAnswers.com is funded by the biotech industry, which claims it just "wants to talk." And the recently formed Alliance to Feed the Future, representing more than 50 multinational food, agribusiness and biotech companies, wants to give us the “real” scoop on our food system. Read the essay I-522 UPDATE Leader of the Pack: GMA Tops List of NO on I-522 Donors Who wants you to have the right to know whether or not your food has been genetically engineered or not? Leading organic and natural health companies. Consumer groups such as the OCA and the Alliance for Natural Health. Nonprofit watchdog groups. Thousands and thousands of organic and natural health consumers. Who doesn’t? The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and its dues-paying members. Monsanto. DuPont. Bayer Cropsciences. Dow Agrisciences. So far the GMA is the largest donor to the NO on I-522 campaign, which wants desperately to defeat I-522, Washington’s citizens’ initiative to label GMOs. The GMA represents more than 300 corporations including Kraft, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Hershey’s, ConAgra, General Mills and a long list of other companies that want your money – but don’t want you to know what they’re selling you. The GMA member roster also includes Starbucks, Target and Safeway, owner of the O Organics™ brand. Which is why we hope you’ll sign our petition asking the leaders of those companies to support I-522 and ditch the GMA. See Who’s Funding NO and YES on I-522 Campaigns TAKE ACTION: Tell Safeway, Starbucks and Target: Stop bankrolling campaigns to defeat GMO Labeling!

Monsanto is going down

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob387.html

Millions Against Monsanto: On the Road to Victory

“The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all.” - Jimmy Cliff

After a year of maximum profits, record stock prices, the defeat of a major GMO labeling campaign in California, pro-industry court decisions, and a formidable display of political power in Washington, D.C., the Biotech Bully from St. Louis now finds itself on the defensive.

It is no exaggeration to say that Monsanto has become the most hated corporation in the world.

Here’s just one reason Monsanto is in the hot seat. According to Green Medical News:

“ . . . “within the scientific community and educated public alike, there is a growing awareness that Roundup herbicide, and its primary ingredient glyphosate, is actually a broad spectrum biocide, in the etymological sense of the word: "bio" (life) and "cide" (kill) – that is, it broadly, without discrimination kills living things, not just plants.” 

And there are so many more. Thanks to all of you, we’re making headway in the battle to reclaim our food system from the biotech bullies and Big Food. Let’s keep going by showing our support for I-522, Washington State’s GMO labeling initiative.

Read the essay

Trade agreements threaten food safety

The Whole Truth about Whole Foods Labeling Policy

TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27169.cfm

• By Ronnie Cummins and Katherine Paul 
  Organic Consumers Association, March 13th, 2013 

Whole Foods Market (WFM) is being praised in the media for announcing that it will become the first U.S. grocery chain to require that genetically engineered (GE) foods in its stores be labeled, by 2018. This is a victory for consumers and the GE labeling movement. And it’s a major setback for Monsanto, who for 20 years has worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to uphold the myth that GE foods and crops are “substantially equivalent” to non-GE foods, that they are perfectly safe, and shouldn’t require labels.

But let’s take a look at what led up to the announcement, and how the plan falls short.

It is consumer pressure that has finally forced WFM’s hand. Last year, consumers hammered WFM when the company dragged its heels on supporting California’s Proposition 37, a Nov. 7 citizens’ ballot initiative that would have required labels on all GE foods. The measure was narrowly defeated by a misleading $45-million ad campaign, paid for by the biotech and food giants. After calls and emails to WFM executives, and a fair amount of bad press, the company finally printed up some posters and leaflets, and offered a lukewarm endorsement. But it refused to contribute money to the Yes on 37 campaign.

Lynas, again

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27042.cfm

View PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Mark Lynas: GMO Convert? Or Hired Gun? On January 3, Mark Lynas, British author of several books on global warming includingSix Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, told a sold-out audience at the Oxford Farming Conference in Oxford, England, that he was sorry. Sorry that he’d maligned genetically modified (GM) crops. Sorry that he’d “helped to start the anti-GM movement.” Sorry that he’d “demonized” a technology that could be used to “benefit the environment.” That’s right. An expert on global warming was now telling the world that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM crops, with their billions of tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, with their large-scale monocultures that leave food crops vulnerable to drought, pests and disease, are good for the environment. How did a journalist, well-known for his work on climate change, become an impassioned advocate and spokesperson for the biotech industry? And an instant media star in the process? Is Lynas just a slick self-promoter willing to say anything for attention? Or did he sell his soul to the biotech industry? Read the essay

Organic Bytes

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob363.htm

Follow OCA: Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | YouTube   View PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Climate-Friendly Food and Farming: Why We Need Labels on Factory-Farmed Food When we think of global warming, we usually think of gas-guzzling cars and industrial smokestacks. Not food and farms. It’s time to change how we think. The fact is our modern industrial food and farming systems, with all their chemical use, genetically modified crops and energy-intensive methods, are the major cause of man-made global warming. How can you help change the system? By buying local and organic, and by boycotting all meat, dairy and eggs from factory farms which, as it turns out, are a major contributor to our current climate crisis. How can we get everyone to help? By educating consumers about the health, ethical and environmental hazards associated with factory farming. And by demanding labels on all meat, eggs and dairy from animals raised on these farms, so consumers can make a clear choice at the grocery store. It's time to vote with our forks and knives for climate-friendly food and farming! Ronnie’s latest essay   FDA: ‘Nuking Fruits & Veggies Will Make Them Safer.’ Huh? TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA: Don’t irradiate my veggies! Under pretense of keeping us “safe,” the FDA now suggests we’d all be better off eating irradiated raw vegetables and fruits. Huh? In a new rule proposed under the misguided 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the FDA says it wants to require producers of food to be sold in the U.S. to develop a “formal plan” for preventing their products from causing foodborne illness. Processed foods and raw meat are exempted from the rule, but purveyors of raw fruits and vegetables will be required to comply – unless they irradiate their products. Given the difficulties of navigating the new FDA regs for a “formal plan,” what are the chances food producers will choose the easy way out, and simply irradiate their products rather than deal with the FDA’s mountains of bureaucratic paperwork? Never mind that nuking food destroys vitamins, essential fatty acids and other nutrients. Or that it produces carcinogens, such as benzene and formaldehyde, as well as radiolytic compounds that humans have never eaten before. Never mind that there are no federal standards for safe levels of radiation in sterilized food. Never mind that the FDA has never offered any concrete proof that irradiation is safe. On the contrary, there is a large body of evidence that says irradiated foods are dangerous. We know that animals fed irradiated food have developed tumors and suffered reproductive damage and kidney failure. And how is it that the FDA requires labels on irradiated foods, which it claims are perfectly safe, but rejects the notion of labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which it also claims are safe? Where’s the consistency? TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA: Don’t irradiate my veggies! Learn more

From the latest Organic Bytes newsletter

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob361.htm

Washington State to Deliver GMO Labeling Signatures Today!

Vermont, Connecticut Also Advance Labeling Laws

We may have narrowly lost the GMO labeling fight in California this past November, but there’s good reason to believe we’ll win in at least two or three states in 2013.

Today, activists in Washington State will deliver approximately 350,000 signatures to the state legislature, guaranteeing that when voters show up at the polls in November, they’ll get the chance to pass I-522, a statewide GMO labeling initiative.
 
On the other side of the country, Vermont is picking up where it left off last year after the governor caved in to Monsanto’s threats to sue the state if it passed a GMO labeling law. Undaunted, and buoyed by stronger-than-ever support from consumers and lawmakers, Vermont legislators will reintroduce GMO labeling legislation in early January.  Connecticut is moving forward, too, with plans to introduce a similarly popular GMO labeling bill early this year.
 
All signs point to an uphill battle for Monsanto and friends to defeat I-522 in Washington State. I-522 proponents have a full nine months to raise awareness and money, compared with the YES on 37 (California Right to Know Genetically GMO Labeling) Campaign which had only six months to reach voters and raise money. Plus we had to raise a lot more money in California, which has five times as many voters as Washington.

Other reasons for optimism in Washington?

• Washington’s wheat farmers, apple farmers and fishing communities support mandatory GMO labeling because it’s in the best economic interests of the state. Unlabeled GMO wheat, apples and salmon coming on the market will severely damage state agricultural exports. 
• Washington’s newly elected Governor, Jay Inslee, is a long-time supporter and former Congressional advocate of GMO labeling.
• The biotech industry is going to have a tough time explaining why GMO salmon have to be labeled in Alaska, under a state law passed in 2005, but won’t be labeled in Washington.
• Consumers could force Big Food, which donated millions in California to defeat Prop 37, to sit out the fight in Washington, as they continue to boycott the organic and natural brands of big donors, such as Kellogg’s, General Mills, Unilever, Dean Foods, Kraft, Pepsi and Coca Cola.
• If we pass a GMO labeling law in Washington and Vermont and/or Connecticut it will likely have the same marketplace impact as a national law. National brands won’t want to face the PR nightmare of labeling their products as containing GMOs in one state, while keeping consumers in the dark about GMOs in other states.

Learn more
 
Let’s pass GMO labeling in 2013! Donate today the Washington state ballot initiative, I-522, and other state GMO labeling efforts

Was the Prop 37 Election Stolen?

From Organic Bytes, weekly online newsletter of the the Organic Consumers Association

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob359.htm

The most recent official vote tally released from the California's Secretary of State office on Dec. 3 claims that Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, was defeated by a narrow margin of 51.5%-48.5%. 

Or was it? Statisticians in California have uncovered a series of near-impossible "statistical abnormalities" affecting over 150,000 votes that could have swung the election. Their research strongly suggests that electronic vote tabulators in a number of California counties switched Yes on 37 votes into No votes. Statisticians found that Yes on 37 fared worse, on the average, in larger precincts in a number of California's most populous counties than it did in smaller precincts. These findings fly in the face of polls and common sense, given that the strongest support for Yes on 37 came from young people, younger moms, minority communities and low-income residents who are concentrated in these same larger urban precincts. 

On Dec. 10, a donor to OCA and the Yes on Prop 37 campaign filed an official request for a recount in Orange and numerous other counties in California. OCA supports this recount request and will keep you informed on the results of the recount. We will not be satisfied by the "official" Prop 37 election results issued by the Secretary of State's office until there is a complete recount of the votes in all the counties exhibiting statistical abnormalities. 

We've already reported extensively on the lengths Big Biotech and Big Food went to defeat Prop 37. On how they spent $46 million on non-stop ads full of lies and misinformation, and on false mailers pretending to originate from the Democratic Party. Were they desperate enough to flip enough votes to ensure their narrow victory? 

We hope a recount will shed more light on this. For an overview of how electronic "vote flipping" may have stolen the Prop 37 Ballot Initiative, you can listen to this one-hour, in-depth radio show hosted by Bob Fitrakis, Ohio political science professor and expert on electronic voter theft. Among his guests are Francois Choquette, respected California statistician who is investigating electronic voter fraud on Prop 37.

Listen to the radio show (MP3) 

Monsanto's sneak attack on the US Congress

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob357.htm

Follow OCA: Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest   View PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate    Congress Is Back. And So Is Monsanto’s Sneak Attack. TAKE ACTION! With the elections over, Congress has returned for a lame duck session to clear its plate of post-Thanksgiving legislative leftovers. Not surprisingly, Monsanto is back, too, pushing a rider to the FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations Bill that if passed, would grant the biotech engineering giant immunity from Federal law. The so-called “Monsanto Rider” would require the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for planting or cultivating a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. Why does Monsanto want to cut off our access to the courts? Because the courts have ruled that farmers have a right to grow non-GMO crops and consumers have a right to eat non-GMO food. Judges recognize that GMO contamination takes away those rights. So Monsanto is trying to bypass the courts. Right now, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are drafting an omnibus appropriations bill behind closed doors, in the hope of passing it before January. The public won’t know what’s in the bill until it’s ready for a vote. And when the bill does hit the floor, amendments won’t be allowed. Power-hungry Monsanto is counting on a sleepy public, distracted by the holidays, to let them slip this latest outrageous power grab through Congress. Don’t let them do it! Contact your member of Congress and urge them to stop Monsanto's rider. TAKE ACTION! Learn more

From the Organic Consumers Association newsletter, SOLIDARITY WITH WAL-MART WORKERS

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob356.htm

Stand With Walmart Strikers on Black Friday... and Other Ways to Have a Just and Sustainable Holiday

More people work and shop at Walmart than anywhere else. Now, for the first time in the company's 50-year history, Walmart workers are walking off the job to protest low wages and cuts in benefits.

Walmart made $15 billion last year and paid its CEO $18.1 million. The wealth of the company’s owners, the Walton Family, is equal to the combined wealth of 40% of Americans. Surely the Waltons can meet Walmart workers' demands for “more-predictable schedules, less-expensive health-care plans and minimum hourly pay of $13 with the option of working full-time?”

Learn more about the Walmart strike

Watch this video, made by workers in the OUR Walmart campaign

 
 
Watch these other inspirational videos on how to use your consumer power this holiday season to build communities of justice & sustainability