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biotech 
Tue Nov 30, 2010 at 09:40:22 AM PST
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( - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Originally posted on Pesticide Action Network's blog, Groundtruth.
The 50 biggest biotech and agrochemical trade groups spent over $572 million from 1999 to 2010 on lobbying. That's more than half a billion dollars! According to a new report from Food & Water Watch, the annual rate was a steady $30-$40 million per year until about 2006, when this industry apparently began courting Congress in earnest - as the annual figure nearly doubles between 2006 and 2010. And as Business Week reports, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) - the world's largest biotech lobby group - spent over $2 million in the third quarter of 2010 alone, lobbying Congress as well as the National Institute of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture Department, Health and Human Services Department, Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, to keep genetically engineered (GE) crops and animals unregulated and on the market.
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Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 20:53:53 PM PST
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(I've read parts of this book (it was a painful read) and I think this review is rather accurate - although far more polite than I would have been. The paper this book is printed on is not even fit for my compost bin. - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Or I should say, the attack of the misguided and dangerous beings who feed on those farmer's market favorites. As described by James McWilliams in his book "Just Food", there are people lurking among who us who pose a threat to our food supply. McWilliams has given them a name: Locavores. He helpfully describes their characteristics and behaviors so that we can be on the lookout.
At first, they sound harmless. According to McWilliams, they apparently like to "produce and consume locally grown food". They seem to gather at "local farmers's markets". As stated above they feed on "heirloom tomatoes and baby squash", but also on "Berkeley microgreens". They can be overheard speaking in code words such as "sustainability", "foodshed", "agroecology", and "carbon footprint". They seem to have allegiance to a leader they call "Alice Waters." Their social rituals are driven by a "fetish of localism". And they frequently dress as if were "Haight-Ashbury circa 1968".
Cross-posted at Great Lakes Real Food
more after the fold
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Mon Jun 22, 2009 at 10:50:54 AM PDT
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I was struck by this passage in a Sunday Des Moines Register feature on Iowans in key posts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
[USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service administrator Michael] Michener declined to discuss the department's strategy for promoting international acceptance of biotechnology, saying it's still in the works. But he argues that the Obama administration can be more effective than the Bush administration, which went to the World Trade Organization to unsuccessfully break European resistance to the genetically engineered crops.
Vilsack is taking a lighter approach, Michener said, recounting a discussion the secretary had with his German counterpart.
Vilsack "made this very creative argument on how during the eight years of the Bush administration, the Europeans would lecture us on how we had to bring our citizens along and educate them on the science of climate change. He turned that around and said, 'You know, you've got a similar responsibility on biotech'" Michener said.
That certainly is a "creative" analogy. Getting Americans on board with serious policies on climate change may be our only hope for avoiding a catastrophic global warming scenario. Gaining European acceptance for genetically-modified crops has no comparable global benefit (no, these crops won't magically end world hunger).
But a more important point is after the jump.
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