Tomorrow, September 4, marks the beginning of the 2015 Soil Not Oil International Conference. For those who can’t attend, the two-day conference will be live-streamed, beginning at 8 a.m. PST each day.
 
OCA’s National Director, Ronnie Cummins, and Vandana Shiva, activist and author of “Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis,” are two of the featured speakers. They’ll join about 60 other farmers, activists, community organizers, scientists and policymakers, who will present messages of hope at the conference which will be held in Richmond, Calif. 
 
Live feed link 
 
More on the conference 

Growing Doubt: A Scientist’s Experience of GMOs

Colombia to End Coca Farm Glyphosate Sprayings

Activist and author Vandana Shiva chose to study physics. And it was in the study of quantum physics that she learned to make connections.

Those connections led her to a life of activism, a life of championing the world’s farmers, a life of protecting the very source of life—seeds.

It’s not enough to talk anymore. Forty percent of the solution to climate change lies in organic ecological farming and in the hands of small farmers. We can’t wait for government and corporations to make the shift. The people must. – Vandana Shiva, “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”

Production is under way on “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva,” the first documentary showcasing Shiva’s life story. Can you join us in supporting this film?

Watch the trailer 

Support the film 

Last week, the USDA approved yet another GMO crop—potatoes. In March, the agency approved GMO apples.

You can now add potatoes and apples to the long list of crops and foods, including corn, soybeans, alfalfa, papaya, summer squash, sugar beets, cotton and canola, that unless labeled USDA organic, could (or in the case of many of these, probably do) contain GMOs.

Will consumers love these new products? Or reject them?

We’ll never get a clear answer to that question. Because without GMO labels, consumers won’t know what they’re buying.

In a free-market society, products succeed or fail on the basis of consumer demand. But when corporations are granted the legal right to deceive, the market is skewed—leaving corporations to profit from their deception.

We must end the deception. With your support, we will. Thank you!

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)

We know how busy you are. And how you aren’t keen on sitting in front of your laptop for hours on end. 

So we’ve made it easier for you take action and mobilize while you’re on the go!

Want to join OCA’s new mobile action network? Text JoinOCA to 97779. 

When you join our mobile network, we’ll let you know about the latest news and most urgent actions. We’ll also give you the opportunity to sign some of our petitions via text, instead of email, if that’s your preference. We promise to text you only when it matters most.

Join the OCA mobile action network by texting JoinOCA to 97779

Sign our petition asking these 12 Senators to promise not to cosponsor H.R. 1599, a bill to preempt state and federal GMO labeling laws, by texting the word “twelve” to 97779

You’ve probably signed both of these petitions—thank you!

Would you be willing to forward them to a few friends? So we can hit our targets?

More than 47,450 people have signed our petition to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), asking him to speak out publicly against H.R. 1599, a bill that would stomp out the GMO labeling movement—and repeal Vermont’s GMO labeling law before it is enacted on July 1, 2016.  

Sanders is in the perfect position to bring mainstream media attention to this bill, which we call the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act. He could also pressure his fellow Senators to reject a Senate version of the bill. When we hit the 50,000 mark, we will plan a delivery of the petition to Sanders’ or his staff.

Sanders could use his influence to help stop this bill from becoming law. But President Obama could veto H.R. 1599, or any bill like it, that would preempt state or federal mandatory labeling laws. 

That’s exactly what we’ve asked him to do. After all, in addition to promising on the campaign trail that he would “make sure” GMOs are labeled, President Obama also issued an Executive Order against passing laws that preempt state laws.

More than 77,000 people have signed our petition to President Obama. If we want to get the President’s attention, we’re going to need a minimum of 100,000 signatures.

Please share these petitions widely, and ask friends and family to sign on. We need all the help we can get to defeat this law.

TAKE ACTION: Senator Sanders: Protect Our Right to Know. Stop the DARK Act! 

TAKE ACTION:  President Obama: Pledge to veto the DARK Act! 

You’ve heard it over and over again from Monsanto’s public relations machine: GMOs have been thoroughly tested and proven safe.

You know it isn’t true. But unfortunately, many people—and many U.S. lawmakers—have heard only that side of the story. And they’ve heard it so often it’s engrained in their psyches.

It’s up to us to counter Monsanto’s message. In the media. In meetings with Congress members. In phone calls and emails to Congress members.

Thankfully, Steven M. Druker, executive director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity and author of “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public,” has made it easier for you to become a messenger of the truth. Druker has taken key points from his 528-page book and created a short  30-point argument for why the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s decision to allow GMO foods, untested and unlabeled, into the marketplace was fraudulent and illegal. Druker says:

In reality, FDA decision-makers disregarded the input of the agency’s own scientists, covered up their warnings about the risks, lied about the facts and, despite pretensions to the contrary, have failed to conduct any genuine scientific reviews at all (a fact even acknowledged by FDA officials). Without such frauds, GE foods could never have come to market; and they could not remain there if the frauds became widely known. Moreover, the FDA’s policy on GE foods violates federal food safety law, and these novel products are on the market illegally.

Read Druker’s 30-point argument 

Order “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public”  

Welcome to Degeneration Nation. 

After decades of self-destructive business-as-usual—consisting of empire-building, waging wars for fossil fuels, selling out government to the highest bidder, lacing the environment and the global food supply with GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, toxic sweeteners, artery-clogging fats, and synthetic chemicals,  attacking the organic and natural health movement, brainwashing the body politic, destroying soils, forests, wetlands, and biodiversity, and discharging greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere and the oceans like there’s no tomorrow—we’ve reached a new low, physically and morally. 

Distracted by know-nothing media conglomerates and betrayed by cowardly politicians and avaricious corporations, homo sapiens are facing, and unfortunately in many cases still denying, the most serious existential threat in our 200,000 year evolution—catastrophic climate change, compounded by deteriorating public health and the dictatorial rise of political elites and multinational corporations such as Monsanto. 

Unless we move decisively as a global community to transform our degenerative food, farming and energy systems, we are doomed.

To reverse global warming and restabilize the climate, we will need not only to slash CO2 emissions by 90 percent or more, taking down King Coal and Big Oil and converting to renewable sources of energy, but we must also simultaneously remove or draw down 100-150 ppm of the excess (400 ppm) CO2 and greenhouse gases that are already overheating our supersaturated atmosphere. How do we accomplish the latter? Through regenerative agriculture and land use. 

Fortunately, this is possible because more and more consumers are connecting the dots between what’s on their dinner plates and what’s happening to Planet Earth. They, along with environmentalists, animal rights, food justice, climate and health activists, have created a global grassroots movement aimed at dismantling our destructive, degenerative industrial food and farming system. And despite Big Food’s desperate attempts to maintain the status quo, this powerful movement is escalating the war on degeneration.

Read the essay