I imagine top executives at Monsanto are not huge fans right now of Neil Young or Pope Francis. The two might seem to lead very disparate lives. One is a life-long Canadian rocker and the other leads a flock of 1.2 billion Catholics. But lately the two have drawn the ire of corporate giants, particularly Monsanto, all over the […]
2015 has been declared the International Year of Soils by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Dr. Vandana Shiva, who has been at the forefront of the food democracy movement, wants to take the momentum from the victories for food sovereignty in 2014 and make 2015 an even bigger year. Shiva recaps how food activists […]
Marilyn McHugh and Chris Kennedy had a honeymoon unlike most. They set out to travel around the world for a year with plans to stop in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. What was supposed to be a week in Kenya turned into six weeks when they saw how devastated the communities were by industrialized, chemical agriculture and felt […]
Ice cream lovers who prefer to steer clear of genetically modified organisms (GMO) will be happy to hear that Häagen-Dazs has confirmed it will not use vanilla produced via synthetic biology, a new set of “extreme” genetic engineering techniques. “Häagen-Dazs and other leading ice cream companies are doing the right thing by listening to the growing number of consumers […]
When deciding what produce to buy from the supermarket, the questions a shopper typically asks are pretty basic: How’s the color? Is it fresh? Can it withstand toxic chemicals that were once used to manufacture lethal nerve gas? Wait, what? The Center for Food Safety reports Dow Chemical has developed genetically-engineered, pesticide-promoting corn and soybeans that can […]
The final result from Washington State’s ballot initiative to label genetically-engineered foods was painfully close. A mere two percentage points (38,000 voters) made the difference between yes and no. Similarly, last year in California, the Yes side lost by a narrow margin. Also in both states, early polling showed a strong lead, which was then chipped away at […]
The mayor of the Hawaiian island of Kauai this week vetoed a groundbreaking bill that would have mandated farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The veto can be overridden by the Kauai County Council with a minimum of five votes. The council approved the bill Oct. 16 in a 6 to […]
After the Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) last week for violating state election disclosure requirements, the lobby group published a list of their major donors on Friday, according to Cornucopia Institute. Ferguson alleged the GMA illegally collected and spent more than $7 million in opposition to Initiative 522, while […]
Center for Food Safety An export shipment of alfalfa from Washington State was rejected after the shipment tested positive for contamination from genetically engineered (GE), herbicide-resistant alfalfa. The news follows on the heels of yet another contamination episode involving GE wheat in Oregon, highlighting the inadequacy of the U.S. regulatory structure for GE crops. Like […]