In only a few days, over 200,000 people have signed our petition to the World Food Prize Foundation, calling it out for awarding this year's prize -- the most prestigious in agriculture -- to Monsanto and Syngenta executives for their roles in creating GMOs.

Can you take a moment to tell the World Food Prize Foundation not to reward GMO companies?

In calling out the World Food Prize Foundation, we're joining a growing number of scientist and activists from around the world who are fighting for a healthier planet. We're putting our feet down and declaring that agricultural advances should benefit people, not corporations. Please join us in our fight today.

Claiborne and the rest of us.

PS: Click here to share on Facebook

Please find the original email we sent out on this earlier in the week below.

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In an obscene development, a Monsanto executive is winning this year’s “Nobel Prize of agriculture” -- the prestigious World Food Prize -- for creating GMOs. Receiving it legitimizes the sort of rampant genetic modification Monsanto pioneered, and helps validate a ruthless business model that impoverishes farmers and monopolizes our food.

If that wasn't baffling enough, the founder of Syngenta, the same biotech giant joining Bayer in suing Europe to keep selling bee-killing pesticides, will also win the prize -- and with it, a share of the $250,000 prize money. We cannot allow this prize to legitimize frankenfoods and bee killers. The ceremony is in just over a week, so we need to act now.

Tell the World Food Prize Foundation not to reward Monsanto and bee-killer Syngenta’s outrageous practices.

Winning this prize will encourage the wider use of genetically engineered crops and be a huge obstacle to those fighting to investigate the long-term effects of its frankenseeds -- which is exactly what Monsanto wants. In 2008, Monsanto made a $5 million pledge to the World Food Prize Foundation, part of its plan to buy the credibility it can’t legitimately earn. By handing its benefactor this award, the Foundation risks undermining the credibility of the most respected prize in agriculture.

In protest, 81 Councilors of the World Future Council have penned a statement blasting the World Food Prize Foundation for betraying its purpose. In the words of the esteemed authors: “GMO seeds reinforce a model of farming that undermines sustainability of cash-poor farmers, who make up most of the world's hungry… The most dramatic impact of such dependency is in India, where 270,000 farmers, many trapped in debt for buying seeds and chemicals, committed suicide between 1995 and 2012.”

Despite the criticism, Monsanto and Syngenta executives are set to receive their prize on World Food Day, October 16 -- a slap in the face to everyone harmed by their products. We don’t have much time, so we need to publicize this obscene decision -- if enough of us get word of this out, and let people know the World Food Prize is threatening its reputation, we can shame it into choosing a more suitable candidate.

Genetically-modified crops do not deserve the highest praise. Don’t reward Monsanto and Syngenta.

Thanks for all that you do,

Claiborne and the rest of us.

P.S. Please share this campaign on Facebook

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More Information:

And The Winner Of The World Food Prize Is ... The Man From Monsanto, NPR, 19 June 2013

Choice of Monsanto Betrays World Food Prize Purpose, Say Global Leaders , NPR, 26 June 2013

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