Political and corporate elite shun GM food on their own plate

by Carolanne Wright

(NaturalNews) With a sad twist of irony, corporate and government elite dine on safe, organic food while the masses, those very people who are supposedly represented and protected by their governments, are poisoned by hidden genetically modified organisms, pesticides and dangerous contaminants. The presidential family demands organic food in their kitchen, yet behind closed doors, shake hands with the biotech industry. China's top brass is fed by an exclusive, gated organic garden while the rest of the population consumes GM food, steroid contaminated meat and dairy laced with melamine. Even Monsanto's own employee's command non-genetically modified food in their canteen. Access to clean, organic and healthy food is not a given right anymore -- it has become a political battleground with the average citizen suffering the loss.

White House double-take

While First Lady Michelle Obama digs up the White House lawn to plant an organic garden, her husband promotes a GMO agenda within his administration. "You know, in my household, over the last year we have just shifted to organic," she said in a New Yorker interview during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Organic produce from the garden feeds the Obama family and visiting dignitaries alike. Seems okay so far. But then take a look at Obama's laundry-list of presidential appointed positions with biotech ties: USDA head Roger Beachy, a former director at Monsanto, FDA food safety czar Michael Taylor, one-time vice president for public policy at Monsanto, Commissioner of the USDA Tom Vilsack who created the Governors' Biotechnology Partnership. Under President Obama, 10 new GM crops have been approved for 'safe consumption.'

Spiked fences protect organic gardens from the people

The political elite in China enjoy the safest of food -- organic produce, grass-fed beef from Inner Mongolia, rice free of pesticides, chemicals or genetically modified organisms. Compare this with the food supply of ordinary citizens that is laden with pesticides, industrial chemicals and GMOs. Children have become sick and died from tainted baby formula and milk products. Blindness and death have resulted from adults consuming fake liquor. Yet Chinese leaders have their own protected food sources of the highest quality. In Beijing, an organic farm is surrounded by a six-foot spiked fence while security personnel guard the entrance. The garden produces food for top-notch officials only. Beidaihe Sanitorium, a seaside haven for retired party cadres, exclusively uses a specialty rice that is organic and free of GMOs. As for the public, they can purchase the small remaining surplus of the grain at 15 times the cost of regular rice. All the while, the government continues to approve GMOs and harmful chemicals for general consumption.

GMO-free meals at Monsanto

Remember the notice at a Monsanto staff canteen stating the decision "to remove, as far as practicable, GM soya and maize from all food products served in our restaurant. We have taken the above steps to ensure that you, the customer, can feel confident in the food we serve." According to Tony Coombes, the company's spokesperson, "Yes, this is the case, and it is because we believe in choice."

Evidently the average citizen is not allowed the same courtesy of choice considering GMOs have infiltrated the food supply and are not labeled in North America. Only those who can afford the price tag of organic food are able to protect themselves from harmful contaminants. As for the rest of the population, they are the ones who will suffer the devastating health consequences of a corrupt system.

Sources for this article include:

"Meet Monsanto's Number One Lobbyist: Barack Obama" Jon Rappoport. Infowars, September 24, 2012. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.infowars.com

"White House Will Not say Where It Gets Its Meat (And I Don't Blame Them)" David Kirby, Huff Post Green, April 20, 2010. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

"Does Monsanto Man Mitt Romney Secretly Eat Organic?" Tom Philpott. MotherJones, September 26, 2012. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.motherjones.com

"In China, what you eat tells who you are" Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2011. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://articles.latimes.com

"Amid milk scare, China's elite eat all-organic" Associated Press, NBC News, September 24, 2008. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26874854/#.UGrObal9mlI

"GM food banned in Monsanto canteen" Michael McCarthy, The Independent, December 22, 1999. Retrieved on October 2, 2012 from: http://www.independent.co.uk

Suzanne

Pollen from GM soybeans threatens Mexico's honey sales

by PF Louis

(NaturalNews) A large part of Mexico's agricultural export is honey. They are ranked fifth worldwide for exporting the bees' food, but recently Germany rejected a batch of honey from Mexico. Pollen from genetically modified (GM) soybean plants was found in the honey being imported.

Bee keepers in the region and agricultural authorities of the Mexican state of Campeche, one of the states in the Yucatan Peninsula at the southeastern tip of Mexico, were mystified. So a research team familiar with bees and Mexico came in to determine what was going on with GMOs affecting bee colonies in Campeche.

Apparently, some locals thought that GMO contamination from crops considered safe for human consumption was okay in other nations. There is plenty of GM soy declared fit for human consumption in Mexico. Others didn't realize that the bees from local apiaries would be collecting pollen from nearby GM soybean plants. No matter, German buyers weren't buying.

David Roubik, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and his colleagues found that six honey samples from nine hives in the Campeche region contained soy pollen in addition to pollen from many wild plant species. The pollen came from crops near the bee colonies in several small apiaries.

According to a quote by Roubik from a source article, "Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area." [1]

Wait a minute, 200 sq km is 124 square miles, or a 124-mile by 124-mile area! How would the USDA's four-mile buffer between GMO and non-GMO fields work if that's true?

Meanwhile, back in the USA

The rural area of Jackson County in Oregon has been a controversial hot spot of food war activity with local non-GMO farmers raising their fists to battle Syngenta's GM intrusions that have already contaminated some of their organic or standard commercial crops and seeds.

Syngenta is not allowed to seed their GM creations on open fields in Switzerland, where they have their headquarters, because GMO cultivation is banned there.

So they seek other regions where the land is fertile and the climate's right and rent plots to try out their GM crop seeds and see how well they resist herbicides like Roundup or whatever else they think should be tested agriculturally. Safety and contamination testing isn't part of their agenda.

Jackson County has been invaded by Syngenta, and their experimental GM crops have violated the four-mile buffer zone mandated by the USDA for beet and chard seed plots. Syngenta had fields within one mile of three organic farming operations, and further investigation has discovered that Syngenta had been in Jackson County operating undercover in unmarked rented fields since 2009. [2]

This area is big on cultivating organic beet and chard seeds and other organic crops. Sugar beets and chard are of the same species, Beta vulgaris. So Syngenta's GM beets threaten both non-GMO and organic beets and chard, and their seeds. Since agricultural authorities are not listening to these local farmers, they formed their own movement called "GMO Free Jackson County."

The created a petition to bring the whole matter of banning GMO seeds and cultivation to Jackson County. After obtaining over 6,700 signatures, Measure 15-119 to completely ban GMO seeds and farming will be on the ballot May 20, 2014. [3]

In Canada, non-GM alfalfa farmers are resisting Health Canada's green light to start planting GM alfalfa in eastern Canadian provinces, which are not as involved in exporting alfalfa and alfalfa seeds to nations that reject GMOs. Western and Central provinces need that market. So they are putting up the most resistance without much support.

Canada has already had major agricultural losses with non-GM flax and flax seed contamination from GM flax, as well as large scale issues with organic canola. In Washington State (USA) during the summer of 2013, an alfalfa farmer's hay was rejected from export because of GMO contamination. [4]

There is no possibility of non-GMO and GMO co-existence without contamination, despite GMO industry and corrupt agricultural agency reassurances. Pushing for consumer labeling implies that co-existence is okay. It is not! Label laws won't matter when all organic or non-GM crop foods are contaminated from GM seeds and crops.

There needs to be a cooperative effort between consumers and non-GMO farmers to resist biotech industry's takeover of the food supply by banning its cultivation in as many local areas as possible. Retail labeling will do nothing to stop these GMO monsters, especially here in a fast-food nation where most don't really care what's in their food.

Sources for this article include:

[1] http://esciencenews.com

[2] http://www.usobserver.com

[3] http://www.gmofreejacksoncounty.org

[4] http://www.thestar.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

Suzanne

Interesting math...

124 sq miles is not a square of 124 miles by 124 miles. But the math is worse! :-) 200 sq km is 77 sq miles. And 77 sq miles is a square about 8.8 miles by 8.8 miles.

I caught that the 124 sq miles, too, and then saw you already caught it!

So if the buffer is between the hive and the GMO fields, 4.4 would be adequate? Assuming bees will go an equal distance in all directions, meaning the mathematical buffer calculations are almost adequate, that is, there was a coherent reason behind it?


I didn't think soybeans was much of a honey or pollen source. They don't require it. But after searching, I found some noticing no bees on their beans and others saying soybean is a major honey producer. It looks like it depends on how well the beans are growing: water, soil, weather conditions, year-to-year, and location in the country (south and east are best).

Non GMO crop Farmers have lost extensively by GMO contamination. They are usually the ones to have their crops rejected, have their seeds taken away from them and destroyed, or be taken to court for "stealing" the patent rights of the GMO plants because a neighbors GMO field contaminated their crops, while in fact they wanted nothing to do with process.

From what I understand a farmer in Australia has taken the GM growers to court for contaminating his "organic" crops. It's a first, and non GMO farmers are fearful of the outcome. If it goes in their favor it may be a break through for them, but if it goes against them they may lose all rights to grow organic or nonGMO crops.

After reading some about Monsanto, it's not only their products, but their hitmen (in a broad way, but not necessarily exclusive of the other) you have to worry about. Kind of makes you wonder if they are connected with dictatorial control. With their arrogant dismissal of their mistakes of the past and their willful targeting of individuals whether they are innocent or otherwise, I have nothing good to say about Monsanto. And that's regardless of the harm GMO's do to you or the environment! And if it's the company and not the product that is the real problem, is there any question as to whether they care if they have a safe product?

It's a program for control of the food market.
Control the food and everything else falls under their control as well.

There is no other way to make sense of what's going on. Why else can they get away with what they are doing if there was any fairness in how governments deal with theses people.

Often wonder if the control over "buy and sell" will be related to this control of the food market -- or if there will be any food available if they remove the ability for plants to reproduce?

As far as the "technology" is concerned -- it may go the opposite way where something causes all the systems to crash with irreparable damage and the populations won't know how to do anything anymore without all their gadgets. I'm not sure our civilization is getting 'smarter' (other than a few ) the vast majority can't even multiply or divide or add simple figures anymore without an electronic gadget.

I think your latter part is right on. I've read where the supposedly advantages are not what is promoted and the plants do less well than what was planted. Some sort of problem arises and some countries will go hungry. They won't have any of their past genetics to grow as they let them perish for this "new" stuff. Or organizations "help" them by switching them to the new crops with all the supposed benefits and they lose the old. They starve and become dependent. And will be put in a position to be coerced to do whatever it takes to get food.