ORGANIC STANDARDS
How’d Apeel get into USDA Organic? Ask the Organic Materials Review Institute…
Apeel, a mysterious Bill Gates and World Economic Forum-backed food coating that makes rotting produce appear fresh, is approved for use on USDA Organic produce under the name Organipeel.
The Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) gave it the green light, presumably based on citric acid being the active ingredient. Citric acid is a non-organic ingredient allowed in organic as long as it isn’t synthetic, but it’s only 0.66 percent of the Organipeel formulation!
Ask OMRI: What’s in the other 99.44 percent of Organipeel?
At first blush, concerns about Apeel seemed like fake news. Fact checkers were quick to point out that the safety data sheet circulating the internet was for a different product with the same name, not for the edible food coating backed by Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum that was raising hackles on social media.
But, when members of the Organic Consumers Association alerted us to news that Apeel’s is being used in organic, we had to investigate.
How big of a food safety concern is Apeel?
Given everything else Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum expect us to swallow or inject, we can’t be too skeptical, but are the problems with Apeel on the same level as other food safety concerns?
Is it as important to avoid Apeel as it is to reject genetically engineered foods? Toxic pesticides? Factory-farmed animal products laced with livestock drugs, including mRNA vaccines? Indigestible insects? Lab-grown meat-replacements?
Our conclusion is that Apeel carries the same health problems of similar preservatives commonly used to extend the shelf-life of ultra-processed food. On that basis alone, our advice is to avoid Apeel, including the version used on Starr Ranch’s organic apples, known as Organipeel.
Read More and Act Now, Contact Your Congressperson Here
Watch: How’d Apeel get into USDA Organic?
GMO WATCH
Mexico’s Quest for Food Sovereignty in the Face of U.S. Agricultural Dumping
Timothy Wise writes for The Institute for Agriculture and Trade:
“Mexico’s rising levels of import dependence are closely related to the flood of cheap imports from the U.S. since NAFTA. Cheap imported crops and animal products can displace domestically produced goods. Even when they don’t, they put downward pressure on local prices, making it harder for domestic producers to earn a living from their farms while reducing incentives to produce.
That is aggravated by agricultural dumping, when crops and products are exported at below what it cost to produce them. High farm subsidies have been blamed for U.S. agricultural dumping, but the causes are more complex. Industrialized agriculture, if left unregulated, has a natural tendency toward overproduction. Chronic overproduction, in turn, pushes down prices as supply outstrips demand. Subsidies make up some losses for some farmers, but prices remain low. When export prices fall below the costs of production (allowing for transport and handling costs), that is considered an unfair trade practice known as dumping. (See Appendix 2 for more on U.S. agricultural dumping.)”
Read More About the Dual Curse of Import Dependency
TAKE ACTION: We Need to #BanGMOs!
Watch: A Transition Towards Non GMO Corn and Self-Sufficiency for Mexico:
How to articulate the efforts of farmers in Mexico, the United States and Canada to produce non-GMO corn suitable for human consumption, without harming biodiversity and the environment.
SAVE THE BEES
Urban Gardens, Flowerpots Help Bees and Butterflies More Than You Think
Sheri McWhirter writes for MLive:
“Every pollen-producing flower pot helps support bees and butterflies, even those in cities surrounded by more concrete than natural landscapes.
Researcher Kevin Matteson spent years studying pollinator insects in urban areas such as New York City, Chicago, and other metropolitan places. He recently spoke with native plant advocates from across Michigan about how important small gardens and well-placed flowerpots in urban settings are to supporting bees and butterflies.
It turns out city-dwelling insects do their job for the food web just like their countryside counterparts. They also benefit from both native plants and exotic flowers, research shows.”
Find out more about why these little pocket gardens or flowerpots are so important for bee species
Take Action to Ban Neonics in the U.S
SUPPORT OCA, RI & CRL
Organics: Fighting Back
In response to the growing popularity of organics, powerful elements of the global elite, spearheaded by Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum, Silicon Valley lab-meat entrepreneurs, multinational corporate agribusiness, and GMO/precision agriculture/Big Data firms, have declared outright war on organics and animal agriculture. These advocates of shutting down the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of organic (certified or de facto organic) small farmers, pastoralists, and rural villagers proclaim, without evidence, that organic and regenerative practices cannot feed the world.
Conflating small farms and traditional grazing with factory farms and feedlots, and nutrient-dense whole foods with highly processed foods and “food-like” substances, the cheerleaders and profiteers of high-tech agriculture have literally declared war on indigenous knowledge and practices, organic and regenerative agriculture, holistic grazing, and agroforestry.
The agro-technocrats claim that organic and small farmers use up too much land, that indigenous and traditional practices spur deforestation, that organic productivity (without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and GMO seeds) is inefficient; and that growing food hydroponically in containers without soil and gene-editing should be allowed to be labeled as “organic.”
They say that genetically engineered lab meat and dairy, grown in industrial vats, must become the norm. Most recently these warriors against organic (including misguided vegans and climate zealots) have announced that animal agriculture (the livelihood for a billion small farmers and rural villagers) should be abolished entirely in favor of fallowing and “rewilding” 75% of agricultural lands.
OCA promises to join our allies, U.S. and worldwide, to stop the War on Organics. But we need your help and active participation to win this battle.
If you can afford it, please give us a donation today.
Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Support Citizens Regeneration Lobby, OCA’s 501(c)(4) lobbying arm (not tax-deductible)
MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO
People Exposed to Glyphosate Have Cancer Biomarkers in Urine – Study
Carey Gillam writes for the Guardian:
“New research by top US government scientists has found that people exposed to the widely used weedkilling chemical glyphosate have biomarkers in their urine linked to the development of cancer and other diseases.
The study, published last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, measured glyphosate levels in the urine of farmers and other study participants and determined that high levels of the pesticide were associated with signs of a reaction in the body called oxidative stress, a condition that causes damage to DNA.
Oxidative stress is considered by health experts as a key characteristic of carcinogens.
The authors of the paper – 10 scientists with the National Institutes of Health and two from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – concluded that their study “contributes to the weight of evidence supporting an association between glyphosate exposure and oxidative stress in humans”.
They also noted that “accumulating evidence supports the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of hematologic cancers”, such as lymphoma, myeloma and leukemia.
Tell Congress to Ban Monsanto/Bayer’s Cancer-Causing Roundup Weedkiller!
Pan Report Finds “No Obstacles” to Banning Glyphosate as Alternatives Exist for All Agricultural Uses
RONNIE’S ARCHIVES
Rules for Regenerators: Highlight Positive Solutions
By Ronnie Cummins | June 21st, 2022
Regenerators, young and old, given our current situation, need to operate on the old adage that “the darkest hour is right before the dawn.” Instead of just dwelling on the negative, on the things that divide or frighten us, we need to search out and highlight today’s positive trends, best practices, and solutions.
For the OCA and Regeneration International community this means not just focusing on the latest corruption and criminality of the ruling class and the technocrats, not just the delusions and self-destructive behavior of those brainwashed by the Establishment narrative, but on finding, highlighting, and scaling up real life regenerative alternatives. As we inform ourselves and resist the Great Reset, the Big Pharma power grab, Silicon Valley programming and censorship, the Ukraine war and endless conflict, the reckless science, the pollution of our food, the destruction of the environment and climate, and the mass confusion, fear, and psychosis that has debilitated much of the body politic; we must also search out and highlight the positive trends in grassroots insurgency and creativity.
We must seek out, highlight, and participate in the best practices of organic and regenerative food, farming, and land use, as well as the holistic natural health practices, food and dietary changes, and lifestyle transformations that are regenerating people’s health, mental and physical.
BIG OIL
Pipeline Company Spent Big on Police Gear to Use Against Standing Rock Protesters
Alleen Brown, Naveena Sadasivam write for Intercept in partnership with Grist:
‘Their protest encampment razed, the Indigenous-led environmental movement at North Dakota’s Standing Rock reservation was searching for a new tactic. By March 2017, the fight over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline had been underway for months. Leaders of the movement to defend Indigenous rights on the land — and its waterways — had a new aim: to march on Washington.
Native leaders and activists, calling themselves water protectors, wanted to show the newly elected President Donald Trump that they would continue to fight for their treaty rights to lands including the pipeline route. The march would be called “Native Nations Rise.”
Law enforcement was getting ready, too — and discussing plans with Energy Transfer, the parent company of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Throughout much of the uprising against the pipeline, the National Sheriffs’ Association talked routinely with TigerSwan, Energy Transfer’s lead security firm on the project, working hand-in-hand to craft pro-pipeline messaging. A top official with the sheriffs’ public relations contractor, Off The Record Strategies, floated a plan to TigerSwan’s lead propagandist, a man named Robert Rice.’
Read more about how the spin doctors fought an information war against protesters.
“I didn’t come up here to die. I came up here to live with this water,” Vonda Long, from the Cheyenne River tribe in South Dakota
LITTLE BYTES
Other Essential Reading and Videos for the Week
Opinion: Maybe It Is Time for Change in How Pigs Are Raised Here
What to Forage in Spring: 20 Edible and Medicinal Plants and Fungi
David Bronner on How Psychedelics Could Be a Cure for Capitalism