Under the current system, “the lungs of the Earth are being plowed up and bulldozed to plant more corn and soybeans so that more animals can be raised in confinement.” "Farmers need to follow the lead of India’s farmers and make our voices heard.”
A massive portion of the planet's seed stock could soon be in the hands of a single company. Bayer announced last month that it plans to purchase Monsanto, the controversial chemical corporation that has been sued around the world over its products. Nowadays, Bayer has a more consumer-friendly corporate reputation, but has a checkered past too.
Reader Comments - Police Killings are Epidemic; Jewish Establishment Tries to Silence Critics; Yavon Kaplan - new Israeli refusknik; New Video - Feeling Good About Apartheid; Guatemalans Infected with STDs; US Cold War with Iran; Indiana; Islamic State - Cancer of Modern Capitalism; US Trains Neo-Nazis in Ukraine;
Announcements - Worker Rights Conference; #BlackLivesMatter; 79th Annual ALBA Celebration;
Today in History - Paul Robeson - Born 1898
Reader Comments - Mexican Farmworkers Strike; Innocent Man on Death Row - Prosecutor Apologizes; Stealing Africa's Seeds; Fighting Water Privatization - Ireland and Mexico; Run Elizabeth, Run; Jews Who Speak Out Against Israeli Policies; Cesar Chavez, the UFW - Lessons for Today; Feminist Heroes for Children; Cuba Eradicates Syphilis; Billie Holiday and Ethel Rosenberg;
Resources for Passover; To Better Understand Greece and Syriza;
Announcements
“We reject this law because it is a threat to family farms and to biodiversity,” said Lucía Sepúlveda from the Alliance for a Better Quality of Life/Pesticide Action Network of Chile (RAP-AL Chile). Last August, her organization and thousands of other Chileans took to the streets of cities across the country in mass protests against the law.
Reader Comments - German Election; Average American Family Pays $6,000 a Year in Subsidies to Big Business; Monsanto and GMO Labeling; Pope Francis;
Announcements - Political Economy of the Environment -- URPE Conference in Brooklyn - Oct. 5; A Message from Cynthia Nixon - Curriculum of Change Celebration - New York - Oct. 17; New Populisms and the European Right and far Right Parties (new resource)
In short, it is just too profitable to give up.
Readers response to the portside post - Labels for GMO Foods Are a Bad Idea; http://portside.org/2013-09-14/labels-gmo-foods-are-bad-idea ; from Judy Atkins, Ivan Handler, C. T. Weber, Sarah Carlson, James Patrick Jordan, Nancy Shinn, Richard Gibson, Germaine Cook, Karen Bednarek, Gregory Wonderwheel, Richard Curtis, Laurel MacDowell, Mark R. Elsis (with links to alternative sources)
Midwest farmers douse their fields in chemicals as insects grow resistant to Bt Corn
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