Environmental for Food Justice

Mexican judge bans planting of GMO soy CROP SEEN AS THREAT TO HONEY BEE COLONIES Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | July 24, 2014 According to reports appearing in the Mexican print media, a federal district court judge in Yucatán yesterday overturned a permit issued to Monsanto , the U.S.-based multinational corporation that is a leading purveyor of genetically modified crops (GMOs). The permit, which had been issued by the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock , Rural Development , Fisheries and Food on June 6, 2012, allowed the commercial planting of GM soy bean in Yucatán . The ruling was based on consideration of scientific evidence demonstrating (to the judge’s satisfaction) that GMO soy crop plantings threaten Mexican honey production in the states of Campeche , Quintana Roo, and Yucatán. An op-ed piece appearing in yesterday’s La Jornada (July 23), applauded the decision with insightful commentary suggesting that the federal agencies involved in this dispute are guilt...

GMO Agricultural ‘Coexistence’ Rule COEXISTENCE ≠ GMO CONTAMINATION PREVENTION Comment deadline:  March 4, 2014 Action Needed! Devon G. Peña | Shoreline, WA | February 9, 2014 Obama’s Agriculture Department wants to act on a specific set of implicit anti-science assumptions that undergird a coexistence policy for GMO and nonGMO farmers. This involves the genetic science equivalent of climate change denial: It requires we ignore the threats and damages posed by the indisputable facts of introgression, horizontal gene transfer, resistance of targeted organisms, and other effects meticulously documented by an emergent predictive ecology of transgenic crops and their impacts on native land race heirloom varieties and their wild relatives. The USDA is asking for public comments on a proposed policy for agricultural “coexistence”. This can be read as an attempt to impose a policy of détente between GMO and non-GMO farmers and handlers. How will this relationship of coexistence and ...