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Begin forwarded message:
From: "Organic Consumers Association" <ronniecummins@organicconsumers.org>
Date: February 23, 2012 1:20:54 PM EST
To: "linda sierra" <lcyerra1@gmail.com>
Subject: Monsanto's Minions Attack, Whole Fraud Revisited
Reply-To: "Organic Consumers Association" <ronniecummins@organicconsumers.org>
Monsanto's Minions Attack, Whole Fraud Revisited
Organic Bytes #317: Monsanto's Minions Attack, Whole Fraud Revisited
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Monsanto's Minions Attack
It's hard to argue with consumers' right to know what's in our food. That's why nine out of ten people support labels for genetically engineered food.
But, money talks, and companies like Monsanto that have gotten rich by intimidating farmers and hiding GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in our food are already on the attack in California. Monsanto's Minions, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the Farm Bureau, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, have begun a smear campaign to derail a surging grassroots movement in California to label genetically engineered food and ban the marketing of GE-tainted food as "natural." The California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative, led by OCA, Food Democracy Now, LabelGMOs.org, Organic Consumers Fund, Mercola.com and others, is a massive campaign to get mandatory labeling on the November 2012 ballot.
Monsanto Minions found a mouthpiece in Dan Morain at the Sacramento Bee newspaper, who published an attack February 19 on the CA Right to Know/Label GMOs coalition. Morain's article has backfired, however, with a flood of irate consumers attacking his biased propaganda and only a few comments in support.
OCA has written a rebuttal that takes apart Morain's hatchet job point-by-point, and we need your help to set the record straight.
Please read our rebuttal, then go to Morain's column, scroll down and add your comments.
CA Update
Meanwhile in California, signature gathering to put the GMO Labeling Initiative on the ballot is underway. Thousands of campaign volunteers and paid petition gatherers are already out in the streets, in front of grocery stores, college campuses, and other areas with high pedestrian traffic. We're on track to meet our goal of collecting the 750,000 - 850,000 signatures we need to be sure we'll have the 560,000 to qualify our measure for the November 2012 election. But OCA and our allies need your help now more than ever!
Support the OCA and the OCF: Strike a Blow Against Monsanto and Corporate Agribusiness
Unlike Whole Foods Market, OCA and our lobbying ally, the Organic Consumers Fund, put our money where our mouth is. With the 2012 California Ballot Initiative, and GMO labeling legislation gaining momentum in Vermont, Connecticut, Hawaii and other states, we have a real chance to hit Monsanto, corporate agribusiness, and thev supermarket chains with the skull and crossbones they fear so much: mandatory labels on genetically engineered food. We also continue our struggle to strengthen organic standards and significantly expand the market for organic food and products, especially those produced locally and regionally. And of course we continue to educate and mobilize the public on a wide range of crucial issues such as global warming, Fair Trade, children's health, and alternative medicine.
Please be as generous as you can during our February fundraising drive.
Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible)
Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our efforts in California)
Inspirational Amazing Anti-GMO Work in Hawaii!
On February 22, hundreds of people rallied at the State Capitol in Honolulu in support of Senate Bill 2279, a bill requiring the mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods. The following videos are beautiful and inspiring! Watch our Anti-GMO Hawaiian brothers and sisters mobilizing to protect the food supply.
Inspirational Six-Minute Video
The Movement to Label GMOs Is Gaining Momentum Nationwide
In Connecticut, on Wednesday, February 22, the General Assembly's Environment Committee held a public hearing on HB 5117, a bill mandating the labeling of genetically modified foods. Vegetable farmer Bob Burns, who owns Aiki Farms in Ledyard, testified in support of the bill. Burns has been rallying support among legislators and farmers, emphasizing consumers' right to know.
In Vermont, a grassroots based petition and lobbying campaign, supported by the OCA and led by the Northeast Organic Farmers Association, Rural Vermont, VPIRG, and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is gathering momentum, prodding state legislators to pass a law, utilizing basically the same language as California, to require mandatory labeling of GMOs and ban the practice of labeling or advertising genetically engineered foods as "natural" or "all natural.Unfortunately, the article we linked to in last week's Bytes about Colorado wasn't up to date. Here's the whole story.
Heard From Whole Foods Recently?
Two weeks ago, we published OCA Director Ronnie Cummins's essay on Whole Foods Market, "Whole Fraud: Exposing the Myth of So-Called Natural Foods." If you chose to weigh in and wrote to Whole Foods asking why they don't label GMOs in their stores, you probably received a letter back, insisting that they are addressing the problem by enrolling their store brand products in the Non-GMO Project.
We don't disparage the efforts of the Non-GMO Project to verify the legitimacy of non-GMO claims through a third-party system, on a limited percentage of the thousands of items in their stores, but WFM and other retailers should not pretend that this takes the place of mandatory store-wide GMO labeling requirements.
Whole
LC (
Laura Klein (
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Sixteen states are currently considering legislation to label GMOs. Please contact your state legislators to encourage them to support or introduce GMO labeling bills.
After over 2000 letters from concerned consumers, Fair Trade USA (FTUSA; formerly TransFair USA) has released its revised draft Multiple Ingredients Product Policy. Organic Consumers Association's Fair World Project (FWP) is pleased that FTUSA has incorporated feedback from various stakeholder groups on important issues, especially with respect minimum ingredient requirements for fair trade products and strengthening the commercial availability requirement to source fair trade ingredients. The commercial availability requirement is a particularly crucial market driver to expand markets for fair trade farmers. However, there are a number of critical areas for improvement, which are outlined in the Fair World Project's recent statement regarding FTUSA's new revisions.
Beatrice Blake, guidebook author and community ecotourism expert, has designed a special itinerary for OCA members that visits sustainable coffee farms near Palmichal de Acosta and organic farms in Altamira at the entrance to La Amistad International Park. These community-owned farms are members of ACTUAR, the Costa Rican Rural Tourism Association, which just won the Responsible Tourism Award at the Educational Travel Conference. 
alexandra zissu (
Ms. Lin (