Organic Bytes

Edited by Ronnie Cummins

FOOD SYMPOSIUM

Global Attacks on Food & Organics

OCA, RI, and Hudson Carbon participated in a three-hour podcast sponsored by Dr. Meryl Nass and Children’s Health Defense TV on Saturday March 4. The panelists focused on the global attacks on food and Organics and the solutions offered by organic and local regenerative agriculture. The show was hosted by OCA Political Director Alexis Baden-Mayer.

Speakers included yours truly, Ronnie Cummins, Dr. Joseph Mercola, James Corbett (Corbett Report), Andre Leu (Regeneration International), Ben Banks-Dobson (Hudson Carbon), Abby Rockefeller (Churchtown Dairy), Stephanie Seneff (Regeneration Health International), Zen Honeycutt (Moms Across America), Congressman Tom Massie (R-KY) and others.

You can watch the entire video podcast or any of the 15-20 minute presentations here: The Attack on Food Symposium & Solutions to Fight Back

FOOD SYSTEMS

Latin America’s Food Paradox: Hunger & Forced Migration Amidst Plenty

Jose Luis Chicoma reports for Food Tank:

“The most biodiverse region on the planet, Latin America is an agroindustrial superpower that exports fully one fourth of its total production. By contrast, another agricultural superpower, Asia, exports only 6 percent of its production. Still Latin America has never succeeded in tapping into its agricultural wealth to adequately feed its population. At the moment, at least six countries in the region are in the throes of a food crisis, with nearly 268 million Latin Americans currently feeling the effects of food insecurity, with many millions more sure to join their ranks in the coming months.

The countries in crisis—Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela—find themselves in this situation as a result of economic recessions, natural or climate-related disasters, waves of violence or widespread delinquency. On top of that, the invasion of Ukraine and resulting spike in energy costs, as well as the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and a series of climate shocks have sparked one more perfect storm that is plunging millions more Latin Americans into hunger… Since the colonization, the Spanish favored producing export commodities, such as sugar, over basic staples aimed at feeding the local population. A similar logic applied to a string of other commodities, including bananas, coffee, and cacao, as well as grains and meat. More recently, Green Revolution-style agriculture has taken hold throughout much of the region, with large swaths of land given over to this fertilizer- and pesticide-heavy production. Argentina and Brazil have bet big on genetically modified soy and corn, which is exported to feed pigs and cattle in developed countries and China. Monocultures also predominate, such as sugar, which is used to produce ethanol, and palm oil, a key ingredient in ultra-processed foods…”

Learn more: Latin America’s Food Paradox

GENETIC ENGINEERING

Stop the Mad Scientists’ Human Genetic Engineering & Designer Babies

The International Coalition to Stop Designer Babies and GeneEthics ask you to help defend the human genome against deliberate genetic changes that are passed on to children and grand-children i.e. heritable human genetic modification.

Please sign our Declaration personally and/or as a group. Call on the United Nations to create an international convention to permanently ban heritable human gene modification and cloning. Also send our request to others who may share your concerns.
Email us with any queries or comments.

Why keep bans on modifying human genes? Many countries have legislation, regulations, guidelines, codes, and international treaties which prohibit heritable human gene modification. No country explicitly permits it. The new international Coalition to Stop Designer Babies defends these bans, to prevent babies being born with lab-designed traits that would be passed on to future generations. Please sign the Declaration to help resist the GM bans being lifted!

The birth of the first gene-edited babies, announced at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, in 2018, created pressure to lift the bans on designer babies.

ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE

Phosphorus Fertilizers Threaten Our Water, Health, & Environment

At OCA we were angered and disgusted by three years of mainstream media lies on COVID-19, including magazines like the New Yorker. But occasionally even the New Yorker—post-COVID—comes up with a good article. Pulitzer Prize environmental reporter Elizabeth Kolbert writes about the plague of synthetic phosphorus (and nitrogen) fertilizers in contemporary industrial agriculture.

“Fertilizers… boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today they are creating vast dead zones in our lakes and seas… Since the early nineteen-sixties and the start of the Green Revolution, global consumption of phosphorus fertilizers has more than quadrupled. How long the world’s reserves will last, given this trend, is a matter of debate.

As the planet’s population continues to climb—it recently reached eight billion and is expected to hit nine billion in fifteen years—more and more people will need to be fed. At the same time, as the best-grade ores get mined out, more and more rock will presumably have to be processed just to hold fertilizer production steady. Some researchers say that “peak phosphorus,” the point at which the amount of phosphorus being pulled from the ground starts to decline, could be reached within the next decade…”

Of course, we don’t use phosphorus and nitrogen synthetic fertilizers in organic agriculture, but rather natural compost. We need to jumpstart the transition to organic agriculture becoming the norm, not just the alternative.

Learn more: Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End It

APPETITE FOR A CHANGE

Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms: Big Food Wants to Label Their Poison Food as “Healthy”

Lee Fang reports:

“The makers of Fruity Pebbles, Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, and other popular cereal brands are bitterly lobbying against a new Food and Drug Administration proposal that would prevent them from labeling their products as ‘healthy.’

The proposed FDA rule mandates that foods labeled as healthy must contain a major food group — such as dairy, fruits, or whole grains — and must fit certain limits on saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.

The rule limits cereals, for example, to no more than 2.5 grams of sugar per serving in order to be labeled as healthy — a restriction food manufacturers claim would exclude over 95 percent of ready-to-eat cereals on the market.

In response, processed food companies that produce a variety of snacks, baked goods, pastas, and frozen pizzas are challenging the rules before they are finalized by the agency. Among the most vocal food companies are producers of high-sugar cereals, which are largely marketed to children and have been criticized as a driver of the obesity epidemic in America.

In a joint filing made last month, the largest cereal producers in the country — General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Post Consumer Brands — decried the proposed nutritional criteria and threatened to file a lawsuit, challenging the guidelines as a violation of corporate free speech rights…”

Read more: Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms Threaten to Block “Healthy” Food Labeling Guidelines in Court

BAN GMOs

Busting the Myths on New GMOs

From the Organic and Non-GMO Report:

“As the European Union is preparing to decide on whether and how to deregulate new GMOs, Slow Food looks at the most frequent claims made by the biotechnology and seed industry to promote new GMOs and their deregulation. Spoiler: they’re misleading, if not deceptive.

Myth #1: Changes brought by new GM techniques (or “genome editing”) to alter plants are the same as what could happen in nature or with conventional breeding.

Myth #2: New GMOs will help reduce the use of pesticides, including herbicides.

Myth #3: We need new GMOs to feed our ever-growing population.

Myth #4: New GM techniques make precise and controlled changes to the DNA, with predictable outcomes.

Myth #5: New GMOs are vital to adapt agriculture to climate change.

The article concludes: “We don’t need more GM supposedly ‘climate-ready-crops’, we need climate-ready agroecological systems founded on proven methods, which also ensure farmers’ sovereignty free from patents. This requires choosing the right crops for the right location and conditions, planting a diversity of crops, and building healthy soils that retain moisture in dry conditions and prevent flooding in wet conditions.”

Learn more: Busting the Myths on New GMOs

Sign OCA’s petition to Ban GMOs

SAVE ORGANIC STANDARDS

Tell Expo West to Ban GMO Products at the National Organic and Natural Foods Convention in California

Our allies at GMO Science write:

“The biotech Industry is now promoting food additives and proteins produced by genetically engineered yeast, algae and bacteria to secrete something designed to mimic a natural compound or substance normally produced by plants or animals. Despite advertising claims that such substances are “identical” to cow’s milk, beef protein or plant molecules, the substances created are unique and different from the natural proteins and compounds they mimic. This new food technology is controversial, virtually unregulated and minimally assessed for negative health impacts. The substances that are derived from genetically engineered organisms have not undergone peer reviewed safety testing prior to being brought to market and basic problems like allergenicity remain a prominent risk. The long-term health effects of consuming these genetically engineered proteins are unknown. The environmental impacts from contamination caused by the release of these organisms into air and water is irreversible and risky…

In addition to the lack of public health studies about these ingredients, there is also a lack of labeling of ingredients derived from genetic engineering, making it almost impossible for companies and consumers to avoid them… This has allowed companies using these new genetically engineered proteins, flavors and fragrances to make ‘Natural’ and ‘Bio-Identical’ claims, and yet they are patented as unique. Sometimes they appear on labels as ‘fermentation products’ and other terms that are misleading at best.

These GMO 2.0 ingredients do not belong at a natural and organic trade show. Including these products at Natural Products Expo undermines, degrades and damages the Natural and Organic industry as a whole and signals their acceptance as equivalent to natural foods, which they are not. To allow these ingredients on the show floor is to give them credibility while they do severe damage to the credibility of our industry.”

Read the article and send your petition to Expo West: Request That New Hope Prohibit Food Products Containing Ingredients Produced by Genetically Engineered Microorganisms at Natural Products Expo

SUPPORT THE OCA

Support the Organic Revolution

As I said in my presentation on the “Global Attacks on Food & Organics,” OCA, RI, and Hudson Carbon are pledged to help the world’s 60 million organic or near organic, but not yet certified, small and family farmers to get certified and then receive a fair price for their products. But in the long run a fair marketplace price for organic products is not enough. If shelf prices for organic products rise too high, middle and low-income consumers will find it hard to afford them. Most of the profits in organic food go to the middle-men, the big brands, supermarket chains, and Amazon.

We are already starting to see a slowdown in organic growth in the marketplace. We need to press governments to stop subsidizing corporate agribusiness, factory farms, GMOs, and toxic fertilizers and pesticides (currently at $700 billion in government subsidies worldwide) and instead pay a premium to organic producers, not just for the food and fiber they produce, but for the environmental and socio-economic benefits they deliver. These environmental and social services include increasing soil fertility, sequestering carbon (above ground and below ground), rebuilding watersheds, increasing soil rainfall retention, expanding biodiversity, eliminating poverty. But to carry out this long-term project we need your help.

Thank you for your support in 2022, and your donations in the first two months of this year.

But right now we really need your help. So please make a donation today.

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization

Order your OCA “Negotiate Don’t Escalate” bumper stickers from our Minnesota office

Donate $100 or more and we’ll send you a copy of Ronnie’s 2020 book, Grassroots Rising, or a copy of Ronnie’s 2021 book, co-authored with Dr. Mercola, The Truth About COVID-19

Click here for more ways to support our work