Chicago Financial Times
By Hal Weitzman

Monsanto, the world’s biggest seedmaker by revenue, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its use of cash to persuade distributors to use its herbicides.

The US company provides cash incentives to distributors to buy Roundup glyphosate, the world’s leading herbicide, and Roundup Ready seeds. Its most recent programme, introduced last year, offered up to $20 per acre. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Comments: Due July 28

Action Alert

Corporate agribusiness wants to tell the rest of us how to farm, and shut anyone out of the market who does not follow their one-size-fits-all “food safety” standards for leafy green vegetables. The USDA is supporting their plan, which, if accepted, will allow a committee of industry representatives, lobbyists and other officials to write a set of so-called food safety standards for the entire leafy green farming community—this could competitively injure smaller, local and organic producers.

If passed, leafy green handlers/marketers who sign on to this agreement will require every grower they buy from to follow a uniform set of standards, which will be written with large-scale, monoculture, chemical-intensive farming methods in mind. Farmers do not sign on to the agreement – their buyers (brokers, distributors and supermarket chains) do. Sustainable organic and local growers who take different approaches to food safety will likely be shut out of the market when buyers refuse their buy their crops. Read Full Article »

Posted in Completed Action Alerts, Cornucopia News

The USDA is seeking nominations for five upcoming vacancies on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Appointees will serve a five-year term beginning Jan. 24, 2012. Vacancies for the 15-mem¬ber organic advisory board must represent a particular constituency as identified by Congress, and the particular openings are for: Read Full Article »

Posted in Completed Action Alerts

The Washington Post
By Jane Black

Barry Estabrook’s ‘Tomatoland,’ an indictment of modern agriculture

Lucas Mariano Domingo came to the United States from Guatemala hoping to find a job that would pay him enough to send money home. But he was soon broke and homeless. And so it must have seemed like a lucky break when Cesar Navarrete, leader of a Florida tomato-picking crew, offered him false papers, room, board and a job that, if he did well, could earn him $200 a week.

It quickly became clear, however, that this was a false opportunity. Domingo was lodged with three other men in the back of a box truck with no running water or toilet. Food was scarce. Navarrete charged extortionate fees for just about everything. After a hot day in the fields, Domingo was docked $5 to stand naked in the back yard and wash himself with cold water from a garden hose. He was paid irregularly and in small, arbitrary amounts. Worse, Navarrete warned that Domingo or any other laborer who attempted to leave would be severely beaten. It took Domingo nearly three years to escape — and even longer before members of the Navarrete family were charged with what Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney in Fort Myers, Fla., described as “slavery, plain and simple.” Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

Consumers and Independent Producers Lose if Big Ag Wins on Animal Traceability

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expected to issue its new proposed rule for mandatory animal traceability very shortly. While USDA already has traceability requirements as part of existing animal disease control programs, the proposed framework goes much further to require animal tagging and tracing even absent any active disease threat. The framework has raised significant concerns among family farm and ranch advocates, who criticize the agency for failing to provide a coherent, factual explanation for the new program’s necessity.

“USDA brags about the success of past programs, but has abandoned the principles that made them successful,” argued Bill Bullard of R-CALF USA. “Past programs were based on sound science and were developed in response to the transmission, treatment, and elimination of specific identified diseases. USDA’s new approach is a one-size-fits-all approach that does not specifically aim at the control of livestock diseases.” Read Full Article »

Posted in Cornucopia News