That's right; we're the biggest guinea pig society on the planet. We're being poisoned by GMOs, rBGH and other growth hormones as well as the antibiotics given to the livestock, you know, 'just in case they get infected' while in that feed lot.

Put that all together and what you have is a nice well rounded portifolio. You have the Monsantos of the world getting rich; The Medical Cartel getting paid and don't forget big Pharma plus there's always the bankers who finance our self destruction!

Read up on rBGH and GMOs for Pete's sake! They tested genetically altered food on 90 rats for 30 days or something like that, and called it good for our food supply! It began back with Nixon believe it or not and we can thank the Rockefeller family and their initatives with our food supply, which they want to control. As Kissinger said; "Control the oil, you control nations; Control the food and you control the people". No matter who's the next Pres, our immediate threat is our food and water supply. PRESCRIPTION DRUGS IN OUR WATER! I mean come on; do you buy all that garbage? Wake up fellow citizen, we're in trouble here. For whatever it's worth, I grew yellow squash in my garden last year (Michigan) and it produced yellow ones but it produced 5 something else too. I couldn't identify what it was supposed to be but decided to buy organic seeds this year and plant a new plot. Good luck everyone and support your health by buying from your local farmer this year.

Peace

"Now there is a real shortage of organic grain for animal husbandry and dairy operations,"

**no sympathy. Humans should not be wasting water and resources for a meat and dairy diet when its unnecessary and even unhealthy.
Its unnecessary misery. Hurts wildlife, top soil(after all, we dont want them locked up in factory farms do we?), you name it.

GMOS should be considered eco-terrorism if we want to throw words around..

I hope there's a special place in Hell reserved for Monsanto executives and the "scientists" on its payroll. Better yet, maybe they'll eat their own Frankenfoods and get sick from their own monster creations.

Although testing by the organic community may be necessary at this time to maintain the confidence and loyalty of their consumers, I think the point should be that the conventional farmers that are planting the GM seeds should be held responsible for loss of organic produce certification on adjacent farms. The same should go for shippers, millers, and all of the other middle men between the producer and consumer. Every step has to be scrupulously monitored or the faith in organic foods will dwindle.

Of course, this would require enforcement and strenghtening of the laws on the books. Until and unless GM producers and their suppliers are ultimately held responsible, we can expect the problem to grow. We can be assured that no voluntary mandate will be entertained by the GM industry, although they might find the suggestion entertaining. I maintain that the suppliers and producers of GM crops should be responsible for the costs of testing. After all, it is their contamination that is responsible for de-certifying the compromised organic products. Legislation to that effect will be a hard fight, but worth the effort.

All of us must push our elected officials to work for stronger laws and enforcement, convince the grocery chains and their suppliers that it is a problem that won't go away, and continue supporting the organic movement.

This isn't so much of an "organic" problem as it is an industrial organic problem. None of the farms I buy from are anywhere near GMO fields, and they don't plant any GMO crops.

And what the hell does the word Organic mean when farmers are feeding grain to cows?! That's exactly the wrong thing to be doing in the first place, and it goes to show how important it is for everyone to know the provenance of our food! Organic hasn't meant much of anything since the USDA got involved - it's just another industrial production process now. Get to know your food - find your farmers and grow your own!

The European Union is doing the same damn thing throughout European countries, driving out small farmers and contaminating organic crops over there as well. There are only about 500 agribusinesses supplying all the worlds food. GM seeds cannot be saved and so must be purchased year after year -- unlike organic seeds, which can be saved and the fruits/vegetables grown organically have at least 50% more nutrition and taste better. They just don't look so perfect in our markets. Consumers are misled when they see the beautiful fruits and vegetables and are more likely (to unknowledgeable consumers) to buy the most beautiful.

The fact that organic agriculture is the fastest growing segment of agriculture should tell our substandard politicians that the people organically grown food rather than food raised with petrochemical and genetic poisons. Scream long and loud at them. Go visit them. All too often the only input they get is from the daily barrage of industrial lobbyists!

Let's stop calling the GMO and chemical farmers "conventional." this is not conventional farming at all. Conventional is what happened ever since people started saving and planting seeds, and it has a lot of value. Calling this new and experimental farming conventional makes it sound legitimate.

I wish that the people complaining about GM crops actually knew what they were talking about, but that is just a forlorn hope. When you say that the problem started with Nixon when there was absolutely no way that genes could be transferred at that time shows a complete lack of logic and puts anything else that you say in the category of ranting. Have you wondered why there is no test for BST? It's because the real thing and the "synthetic" hormone are identical and there is no way to tell if what shows up in a test comes from the cow or a syringe. Besides, the amount found in the milk of either one is infinitesimal.

In any case, while finding GM genes in feed fed to organic cattle is a problem, legally and morally but not a health problem, there are other problems that are a lot more important for the consumers' health. How about wind drift of pesticides or herbicides? How about run-off of manure used for fertilizer into the water supply? How about the bacteria in said manure getting onto the organic vegetables? Research was announced not too long ago that showed that these bacteria were actually in the plant, not on the surface. Salmonella were found inside tomatoes that had been smeared with Salmonella culture while they were on the plant so washing doesn't do a whole lot to protect you. The only option is to cook the veggies which is anathema to the magical thinkers in this message board.

I wish that the people complaining about GM crops actually knew what they were talking about, but that is just a forlorn hope. When you say that the problem started with Nixon when there was absolutely no way that genes could be transferred at that time shows a complete lack of logic and puts anything else that you say in the category of ranting. Have you wondered why there is no test for BST? It's because the real thing and the "synthetic" hormone are identical and there is no way to tell if what shows up in a test comes from the cow or a syringe. Besides, the amount found in the milk of either one is infinitesimal.

In any case, while finding GM genes in feed fed to organic cattle is a problem, legally and morally but not a health problem, there are other problems that are a lot more important for the consumers' health. How about wind drift of pesticides or herbicides? How about run-off of manure used for fertilizer into the water supply? How about the bacteria in said manure getting onto the organic vegetables? Research was announced not too long ago that showed that these bacteria were actually in the plant, not on the surface. Salmonella were found inside tomatoes that had been smeared with Salmonella culture while they were on the plant so washing doesn't do a whole lot to protect you. The only option is to cook the veggies which is anathema to the magical thinkers in this message board.

Until the money for politicians problem is solved this is going to continue. If NO ONE wants franken food they will just starve.

The Organic Consumers Association doesn't need government approval. They can make their own rules and announce them to the world. They can formulate policies and test products independently of government. The people who care will know who they are as will the markets who sell their products. Government today is a criminal enterprise and anyone who associates with it will become tainted. We don't need national or state government for this kind of thing. It can be handled locally by informed people.

Look at the prices. Organic food is getting to be cheaper than the industrialized, fertilized food.
That is a problem for the other foodstuffs. Competition.
The food companies do not want organic food to be cheaper than regular food. The fertilizer companies would rather people pay top dollar for their food

"Yup. If the economic pressures of subprime don't get them, the lack of real food will. And wait until the water shortage hits."

"But we got our crop of seeds squirreled away now, so we'll be fine."

"Prepare for rapid depopulation. The meek will never inherit the Earth."

"No, but we'll save it,...for ourselves."

dkm

If you want to know which cows have been treated with rBST just look for ones with undders down to thier hoves. With mastitis, you can also check the treatment records for antibiotic use. Now for that genetically modified feed, well I guessing you have never seen what cows (herbivores) natually eat.

Oh, and there is a test that measures elevates of IgA and a few other anomalies.

Hi Treefrog -- I guess the grass is greener on the other side of the corn-fed lot fence?

P.S. I'm still looking into your errant desert ID pix, as that sure looked like Iraq to me in the background.

Namaste (aka nspire)
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
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Let's start right at the beginning:

"Widespread contamination of U.S. corn, soybeans and other crops by genetically engineered varieties is threatening the purity of organic and natural food products..."

Contamination? Purity?

What is the "purity" of crops that result from millions of years of RANDOM mutations and recombinations, plus thousands of years of selection and breeding by humans using every method except the most recent and well-controlled ones?

Contamination with WHAT that is not present in "organic and natural" crops? DNA? Hello? Anybody take biology in High School?

This is pure natural organic religious dogmatic nonsense. It is in some ways related to other genetic purity fetishes, and it is an obsession only of those privileged enough to enjoy such fetishes.

To have made this into a "progressive" political issue, when there are so many real and serious problems and dangers facing this world, is utterly contemptible.

Not only will GM crops contaminate natural crops, but greedy selfish companies like Monsanto will sue them for the rights to their GM plant pollen, claiming patent infringement.

Hey - I'm a sweetcorn grower. Can I sue my indian corn neighbor for causing me harm when some of my sweetcorn has colored corn kernels? How about if my pumpkins are are pollinated by a neighbors cucumbers? Time to pay some lawers and sue sue sue... How about if my soybeans are pollinated by soybeans? Oh wait a minute that seems insane. Welcome to suburban activist prime time! Can't I select patented traits and sell them like Percy? Don't I have a right to steal?

Hi namaste

The grass is surely greener, I remember pasture fed dairy cows and how sweet natured they were, on small dairies where they were milked by hand and they had names.

Remember, not all treefrogs live in trees. :)

Hi Treefrog

You remind me of my own sweet younger days, although rarely on a farm, I sure have seen lots of cows. Star*of*the*sea used to name all of her cows too - it paints such a lovely picture of the good old days.

If you want to see a great Documentary on GMO's check out The Future of Food, you can netflix it. This controversy is really about Monsanto's war on farmers, and corporate patenting of every living thing. Now thats scary!!! We have to keep organic free of all contaminates.

I agree with microcell. We need to keep all our food free from contaminants. We need to label food that is produced with manure so folks can be aware of the increased potential for such food to contain pathogenic E. coli. We also need to label food that comes from plants that have not been protected from pests with warnings saying "may contain elevated levels of fungal toxins and dangerous metabolites known to cause cancer". Contamination with things actually known to cause harm should be labeled as such.

Monsanto patents genes. They put a couple genes in a plant like corn that contains 50,000 genes. If folks want to buy seed without these genes, like they always did, then they still can. However, it appears that most that farm for a living want the new products. You can still buy a car with a standard transmission, but I am not stopping you from buying a car with an automatic transmission, even though you will generally get worse milage with the automatic transmission. If you want to keep organic food free of contaminants, then you better figure out how to fertilize the plants without manure. Animal production is one of the worst contributors of greenhouse gases. Organic agriculture promotes animal production as factories for fertilizer. Go green, and support high-intensity production which uses fewer resources per pound of food, and most importantly, does not encourage destruction of more natural habitat as a result of lower production per acre.

We need to label food that is produced with manure so folks can be aware of the increased potential for such food to contain pathogenic E. coli."

A label for conventionally produced food then. It allows dumping of manure on crops. Organic does not. Composted manure and manure are not the same.

I (and I'm sure others here) notice your regular habit of hiding behind science - demanding citations of peer-reviewed journal articles to back up your claims, yet not backing your own claims. You tried to back this E. coli claim once, but you did it with an article rewritten by a journalist, not a scientist. Furthermore, the article itself debunked the supposed threat of E. coli in organic foods.

Had you followed the standard you demand of others, you would have found that there is no increased threat from organics: Preharvest Evaluation of Coliforms, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Organic and Conventional Produce Grown by Minnesota Farmers in Journal of Food Protection, Volume 67, Number 5, 1 May 2004 , pp. 894-900(7)