Search Results for: GMO

Family Farmers Amplify Legal Complaint Against Monsanto’s GMOs

Biotechnology Giant Fails to Provide Binding Legal Protection; Farmers Threatened by Contamination from Genetically Modified Organisms NEW YORK: New threats by Monsanto have led to the filing of an amended complaint by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) in its suit on behalf of family farmers, seed businesses, and organic agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on… Read more »

A Brief History of Wood Pulp in Food

Cornucopia’s Take: Cellulose from wood pulp has no nutritional benefit, but it is used in many foods as a filler or to keep cheese shreds, for example, from sticking together. And, because most cellulose is organic and non-GMO, it can be used in certified organic foods as well. How wood got in our food, then… Read more »

Balancing Environmentalism and Profits Works for Texas Farmers

High Plains Journal By Jennifer M. Latzke Jimmy and Susan Wedel don’t consider themselves “radical environmentalists.” “I’m not a radical environmentalist, I’m a reasonable environmentalist,” Jimmy Wedel said. It’s that “reasonable environmentalism” that has the Wedels farming 3,700 acres of organic crops–including forage corn–near the Texas-New Mexico border in the southern Texas Panhandle. A change… Read more »

The Future of Chocolate

Unwrap the world of chocolate and things aren’t always sweet. The cacao plant’s legacy is ancient and complex, while the business surrounding it is bitter, messy, and even ruthless. Its future, meanwhile, is both exciting and uncertain. honeycolony.com By Maryam Henein Back in the Mayan age, around 1100 BCE, cacao was recognized as a “super”… Read more »

The Organic Conversation Begins Anew (again)

GreenMoneyJournal.com By Bob Scowcroft Consider the word “organic.” I suspect that readers of this journal would conjure up an incredibly wide range of images. Maybe it was the restaurant patronized last night. How about nutritionally superior and locally farmed produce? Others might find themselves going right to what their youthful consumption of heavily processed, pesticide… Read more »

Syngenta’s Next Target: Jackson County, Oregon

PAN North America by Paul Towers Last week, Swiss-based pesticide corporation Syngenta dumped tens of thousands of dollars into a county election in Southern Oregon. Sound familiar? It should. Still reeling from their recent defeat in Kaua’i, Syngenta and the rest of the “Big 6” don’t want to lose any more fights around pesticides and GMOs. But Oregononians are… Read more »

First Federal Indictment for Dicamba Misuse

Cornucopia’s Take: GMO and conventional farmers are increasingly plagued by weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup), and crop yields in some areas of the country are dropping. Monsanto and BASF released genetically modified, dicamba-resistant seed (the new alternative to Roundup) before the attendant “low volatility” version of dicamba herbicide… Read more »

Industrial Agriculture Rivals Deforestation as Climate Change Factor

Cornucopia’s Take: Conventional and GMO farming practices have sped up the removal of carbon from the soil, a contributor to climate change. Organic, sustainable agricultural practices help sequester carbon in the soil, prevent erosion, improve soil fertility, and mitigate climate change. Farming has changed climate almost as much as deforestation CBC News Thomson Reuters Harvesting,… Read more »

Who Owns Organic Now? New Info Graphic Tracks the Corporate Takeover of Organics…

Prominent Info Graphic Decoding Corporate Ownership in Organics Updated (click on the poster image above to view a quick loading larger version, and then click on it again for even larger detail) Download High Resolution PDF for printing purposes In 1995 there were 81 independent organic processing companies in the United States. A decade later, Big… Read more »