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'Lace Up Your Shoes'

Ronnie Cummins- Organic Consumers Assoc.

1/14/17

Left in the Dust?

People on horseback herding cattle through a foggy forest at sunrise

Monsanto’s propaganda machine churns out a steady stream of lies and misinformation. One of its most dishonest—but unfortunately, effective—talking points is that the world will go hungry if we stop growing GMO crops, which oh-by-the-way can’t be grown without massive amounts of poisonous chemicals.

Fact is, here in the U.S. alone, 13.1 million children under 18 don’t have consistent access to enough food, according to the U.S. (USDA). That number will soar, right along with soaring temperatures, if we don’t stop degrading and poisoning our soil and water, some scientists warn.

A recent article on Mercola.com cites research by bio-ethicisit George Dvorsky. Dvorsky warns that modern industrial agriculture puts us at risk of a 1930s Great Depression-style dust bowl:

Researchers Michael Glotter, Ph.D. and Joshua Elliot, Ph.D., from the University of Chicago, ran computer simulations to predict the effects of a Dust Bowl-like drought on today's maize, soy and wheat crops.

“We expected to find the system much more resilient because 30 percent of production is now irrigated in the United States, and because we've abandoned corn production in more severely drought-stricken places such as Oklahoma and west Texas,” noted Elliott in a press release. “But we found the opposite: The system was just as sensitive to drought and heat as it was in the 1930s," Dvorsky writes.

Our best way out of this mess? Shift to regenerative practices that stop depleting our soil and fresh water supplies, and start drawing down and sequestering carbon in the soil. Countries that commit to making this transition—for example, France, Germany and Morocco— will be better prepared to deal with global warming.

Those that don’t will be left in the dust.

Read Mercola’s ‘Industrial Farming Threatens Food Security in the U.S.’

RONNIE'S BLOG

DDT Déjà Vu?

Roundup is everywhere. It's so ubiquitous that some scientists refer to it as the new DDT.

DDT, despite mounting scientific evidence against its use, stayed on the market for decades. Like Roundup, DDT was proclaimed “perfectly safe” by chemical companies and government regulators. Until it wasn’t.

In the early 1960s, government regulators finally banned most uses of DDT—but only after millions of people had already developed diseases like cancer, infertility, liver and nervous system damage. And 40 years after it was taken off the market, we haven’t yet been able to completely eradicate it from the environment.

Have we learned nothing?

Following on the declaration of a respected scientific panel of the World Health Organization in 2016 that Roundup (active ingredient glyphosate) likely causes cancer, compounded by numerous studies linking Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide to hormone disruption, birth defects, kidney damage, and other diseases, the question we should be asking today is not whether we need more proof that the Biotech Bully of St. Louis is deliberately poisoning us for profit, aided and abetted by indentured scientists, media hacks, and politicians—but rather how do we drive Monsanto’s Roundup and Roundup-tainted foods off the market?

Read 'Monsanto and Its Minions Are Poisoning Us: How Can We Defend Oursleves'

Follow @ronnie_cummins on Twitter

ACTION ALERT

Testing, testing . . . 1, 2, 3

Mosanto's glyphosate weedkiller, Roundup, on the shelf at a store

Glyphosate. It’s everywhere. Is it in your body?

Health Research Institute (HRI) is offering glyphosate testing to consumers. For $99, HRI’s lab will test your urine sample for glyphosate and AMPA, a metabolite of glyphosate. (Your liver is in charge of breaking down glyphosate into its metabolite—but as a recent study suggests, making your liver break down glyphosate and process its metabolites may be damaging your liver).

How would you test positive for glyphosate if you’re not eating GMO foods?

Because glyphosate may be in your drinking water. Or on your local park, or golf course, or your kids’ school playground, if those areas are sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup. And get this—glyphosate isn’t just sprayed on GMO crops. It’s also used to dry out other crops, like oats, to make harvesting easier. So just because you’re eating “non-GMO” doesn’t mean you’re eating “glyphosate-free.”

To find out if glyphosate is lurking in your body, order the test from HRI. They’ll send you a sample collection kit, along with instruction on how to collect your urine and return it for testing.

TAKE ACTION: Get tested! Request a glyphosate test kit online or call 641-552-6258

More on HRI Labs

SUPPORT THE OCA & OCF

'Lace Up Your Shoes'

Person tying up blue and red pair of shoes

In the past eight years, we frequently spoke out loudly against President Obama, especially when he threw his support behind corporations, at the expense of people. We opposed his position on the disastrous TPP trade deal. And we were disappointed and disillusioned by his failure to veto the DARK Act.

But in his farewell speech this week, President Obama said something we do agree with:

“If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life. If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Stay at it. Sometimes you'll win. Sometimes you'll lose.”

This year, perhaps like no other year in OCA’s history, we will ask you—often, and loudly—to lace up your shoes and do some organizing. Like so many organizations, including Our Revolution and Brand New Congress, we believe that unless we all get up off our couches, turn off our phones and laptops, and get involved in the issues we care about starting in our own communities, our voices will be silenced, our issues will be forgotten, our rights to a clean environment and healthy food will be trampled as never before.

Grassroots organizing is hard work. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes resources. It takes grit, creativity and courage.

This year, perhaps like no other year in our history, we will need you. Please support our work. And lace up your shoes—we have a lot of work to do.

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)

Support OCA's Regeneration International Project (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic, regenerative agriculture and climate change)

NEW STUDY

Fatty Liver?

Red toy figure with a sad face holding its belly

A new study published Monday in Scientific Reports, an online, open access journal from the publishers of Nature, has shown that the glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats at very low doses.

The new peer-reviewed study led by Dr. Michael Antoniou at King’s College London using cutting edge profiling methods describes the molecular composition of the livers of female rats administered with an extremely low dose of Roundup weed-killer over a 2-year period. The dose of glyphosate from the Roundup administered was thousands of times below what is permitted by regulators worldwide. The study revealed that these animals suffered from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

This study is unique in that it is the first to show a causative link between consumption of Roundup at a real-world environmental dose and a serious disease condition.

From an article in Sustainable Pulse:

Dr. Antoniou stated Monday; “The findings of our study are very worrying as they demonstrate for the first time a causative link between an environmentally relevant level of Roundup consumption over the long-term and a serious disease – namely non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Our results also suggest that regulators should reconsider the safety evaluation of glyphosate-based herbicides.

Regulators worldwide accept toxicity studies in rats as indicators of human health risks. Therefore, the results of this latest study may have serious consequences for human health.

NAFLD currently affects 25 percent of the US population. Risk factors include being overweight or obese, having diabetes, high cholesterol or high triglycerides in the blood. Rapid weight loss and poor eating habits also may lead to NAFLD. However, some people develop NAFLD even if they do not have any risk factors. Symptoms include fatigue, weakness, weight loss, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, spider-like blood vessels, yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice), itching, fluid build-up and swelling of the legs (edema) and abdomen (ascites), and mental confusion. NAFLD can progress to the more serious condition non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was supposed to finish its 15-year review of glyphosate more than a year ago, and rule on whether to reregister it or ban it, is still twiddling its thumbs. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration won’t test foods for glyphosate residue. Meanwhile, in the EU, where the European Commission has also failed to act, citizens are taking matters into their own hands—by launching a European Citizens Initiative (ECI) inviting the Commission “to propose to Member States a ban on glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use.”

Full study here

More here

Watch this RT America segment featuring OCA’s Alexis Baden-Mayer

MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO

Trouble in Tucson

In a perfect example of how people are organizing locally against corporate power, a growing number of citizens in Tucson, Ariz., are locked in a heated battle with Monsanto and some local elected officials.

In a nutshell, here’s the deal. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry negotiated a back-room deal that allowed Monsanto to buy 155 acres of farmland just outside of Tucson. The deal included the promise of a big tax break for Monsanto, which plans to build a research and development facility on the land. The Biotech Giant will also grow test plots of experimental seeds and GMO crops.

A lot of people in Tucson don’t like the way the deal was handled. And they don’t want more of Monsanto’s dirty, toxic chemicals fouling up the area’s farmlands.

It’s amazing what these on-the-ground activists have accomplished so far, including rallying hundreds to attend public meetings and getting a final vote on the project delayed. But the vote is set for February 21, and there’s still a lot of work to be done.

If you live in Tucson, you can help by attending meetings, writing letters to the editor, calling the Pima County Supervisors and signing petitions. (You can find phone numbers here.) Please don’t contact Pima County Supervisors unless you live there—phone calls from outside their jurisdictions could backfire.

But you don’t need to live in Tucson, or even in Arizona, to help out in other ways. Do you know an attorney licensed in Arizona who might provide pro bono legal advice to help stall or defeat Monsanto’s project? Do you have media skills you can share? Want to help call Tucson-area residents to ask them to attend meetings? Email kaare@organicconsumers.org.

Meanwhile, you can stay on top of Tucson-Monsanto developments here.

This is what citizen activism looks like. As with Standing Rock, we all need to support people, wherever they are, in their fight against corporate power and corruption.

TAKE ACTION: Sign up to help Tucson keep Monsanto out!

ECO TOUR

Migration Magic!

Now you can combine international travel, adventure and organic food and agriculture education—with a three-day (two-night) trip to one of Mexico’s monarch butterfly sanctuaries.

For the additional cost of $250, Vía Orgánica’s February ecotour will include a trip to the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Sierra Chincua, an area within Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, where one of the sanctuary’s experts will guide you through the spectacular annual, 3,000-mile migration story of the majestic monarch. Ronnie Cummins, the OCA international director, will personally be on hand for parts of these tours, to answer questions and share his vision for transitioning to organic regenerative agriculture on a global scale.

This might be your last chance to see the monarchs in México this year, don’t miss this opportunity!

Vía Orgánica’s eight-day eco tours in the central highlands of Mexico include accommodations at the Vía Orgánica eco ranch and farm school, which serves as an educational farm and training center for farmers, students and activists in the organic food movement. The ranch includes a natural retreat center with adobe buildings, walking trails, solar power, rainwater catchment, and greywater and composting systems.

Tours also include side trips to San Miguel de Allende and other World Heritage sites, trail rides and nature walks, horseback riding, and organic farming and cooking workshops—and of course, the opportunity to join in lively discussions with OCA and Vía Orgánica staff and other tour participants. Cost for accommodations and all-organic meals is $1250 per person. (Add $250 if you want to take the 2-day monarch sanctuary trip).

Next tour dates:

• February 15-22 (Register by January 20) *additional Monarch Butterfly tour*

• April 5-12 (Register by March 10)

Learn more

For more information or to register contact: tour@organicconsumers.org