from OPED news, Monsanto and the Schoolmarm school of correction

[HillbillyBob]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090214-935.html

This is an oped about how monsanto is dabbling in law and the NAIS (patriot act law that requires even sustainable farmers keep hugely extensive and epspensive records)
or How the corporates will put us little farmers out of business and cost us our lively hood and land.

One thing after another is raining down on small farmers.

NAIS which is insane on the face of it but has left farmers worrying it is about something much bigger and incredibly more threatening. For sure the penalties, even for infractions are beyond anything anyone could being to handle. Farmers it seems, face risks too great to run.

And then there are the buried regulations in the FDA which are criminalizing all aspects of farming by listing them as "sources of seed contamination" - a new contamination if ever there were one. But seed cleaning equipment is listed and farmers are now supposed to only use what is approved, which is, again, beyond their capacity. Where was there any contamination of seed, ever, from seed cleaning equipment which would necessitate a farmer giving up a perfectly good seed cleaner they made themselves and used for 40 years and which costs nothing now, to put in a building and equipment for a million and half dollars ... for each line of seed? Never mind the carbon foot print of that versus an already existing seed cleaner. The upshot of that is farmers are too poor to farm.

snip
It is too long to post here, I also suggest that you all write LTTE and your Senators and Reps
My letter to the Reidsville and Eden papers as well as to Sentators Burr and Hagan and Rep Miller NC

Small farmers have been in charge of food safety for thousands of years if we were doing it wrong we would all be dead. With the contamination introduced by factory farming we get sick more often. Monsanto et al introduces genie food that we have no idea what the long term effects are. Organic/natural farmers are being put out of business by the likes of Monsanto whose open crops contaminate the small farmers crops yet Monsanto sues the small farmer into nonexistance.
Anyone stop and think about what Round up ready means? More Gene manipulation so the plants can survive applications of herbicide Round up which is really dilute Agent Orange. Does that not frighten you that this company has the power and the law on their side to put papaw and memas farm out of business, not to mention all those folks that work for mom and pop farms? NAIS will put many small farms out of business due to onerous paperwork that is totally unnecessary, corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson, ADM, Peanut corp (the last two I am not so sure about but the first ones I am) do not belong having a say in the making of food safety rules. Especially when they are self serving and destroy Americas Family Farms, now is when we need those family farms to be in production. This is one more Monopolising Corporate game that we as citizens are on the losing side of. look up and see who has taken these corporate monies and you will see who Congress represents.
Robert Peer

[biscotti]

1. Good article on Monsanto intimidation tactics

in Vanity Fair last May.
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

[Doctor_J]

2. Monsanto is a terrorist organization

Too bad the family farmers don't have media outlets where they can CALL them terrorists so that people can hear it.

[HillbillyBob]

3. This is why I posted it to here in hopes that some folks

would spread it around. Dr Vandana Shiva has been waging a battle along with a lot of Indian farmers against Monsanto and the like for awhile now. I checked the wiki article and there is nothing in it about that now. Odd as there was before.
Though googling up Dr Vandana Shiva, seed /crop patenting should bring back something interesting. I have seen some documentaries on tv about her fight against crop patenting. Its really very scary and monsanto is trying to bring this mess to EU and the US.
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/shiva.html

snip
"One of the rice varieties we conserve and grow is basmati, the aromatic rice for which Dehra Dun is famous. The basmati rice which farmers in my valley have been growing for centuries is today being claimed as "an instant invention of a novel rice line" by a U.S. Corporation called RiceTec (no. 5,663,454).<2> The "neem" which our mothers and grandmothers have used for centuries as a pesticide and fungicide has been patented for these uses by W.R. Grace, another U.S. Corporation.<3> We have challenged Grace's patent with the Greens in European Parliament in the European Patent Office.

This phenomena of biopiracy through which western corporations are stealing centuries of collective knowledge and innovation carried out by Third World women is now reaching epidemic proportions. Such "biopiracy" is now being justified as a new "partnership" between agribusiness and Third World women. For us, theft cannot be the basis of partnership. Partnership implies equality and mutual respect. This would imply that there is no room for biopiracy and that those who have engaged in such piracy apologise to those they have stolen from and whose intellectual and natural creativitycreativity they want to undermine through IPR (Intellectual Property Right) monopolies. Partnership with Third World women necessitates changes in the WTO/TRIPs agreement which protects the pirates and punishes the original innovators as in the case of the U.S./India TRIPs dispute.<4> It also requires changes in the U.S. Patent Act which allows rampant piracy of our biodiversity related knowledge. These changes are essential to ensure that our collective knowledge and innovation is protected and women are recognised and respected as knowers and biodiversity experts.<5> "
Snip
Much more to read. Im on a slower connection here so I can't get all of the references I need, but you get the picture.

[roody]

4. This issue is as important as peace.